More than a decade after losing her husband of 25 years, Chisako Kakehi appeared to be yearning for love.
According to CNN, the widow and printing plant employee began dating Toshiaki Suehiro, 78, in 2007. Suehiro, on the other hand, became ill immediately after eating lunch with Chisako and his children on December 18, that year, and was brought to the hospital.
He survived what doctors characterized as internal asphyxiation, according to CNN. He died a year and a half later from cancer, according to UPI.
Cupid struck again for Chisako in 2011, when she met Masanori Honda, 71. The pair had planned to marry, but then tragedy struck. On March 9, 2012, shortly after spending time with Chisako in a store, Hondo blacked out while riding a motorcycle and died a few hours later in the hospital, according to CNN.
Chisako quickly found a new partner in Minoru Hioki, a lung cancer survivor, in 2013. Hioki passed out and died after the couple dined together on September 20, according to CNN. Chisako rallied again and married a passionate 75-year-old named Isao Kakehi in November 2013, two months after Hioki died. The pair met through a matchmaking agency, according to CNN.
Isao would soon find himself on a funerary slab. On December 28, only weeks after his wedding, he fell while eating with Chisako at their house in Muko, a city near Kyoto, according to CNN.
However, Isao’s death triggered red lights for authorities, who began looking into Chisako. According to CNN, an autopsy found that the salaryman died as a result of cyanide poisoning. According to CBS News, investigators decided to probe more closely into Honda and Hioki’s unusual deaths, as well as Suehiro’s peculiar condition.
According to the BBC, she was arrested in 2014 for killing Isao, Honda, and Hioki, as well as attempting to murder Suehiro. The media quickly dubbed her Japan’s “Black Widow”.
According to News.com.au, prosecutors allege that she stole almost $9 million in insurance payouts and inheritance. According to the Guardian, she lost the majority of her illegal profits in the financial markets.
During her 2017 trial at Kyoto District Court, Chisako, then 70, admitted to poisoning Isao to death.
“I felt like (Isao) was discriminating against me (financially) in comparison to the last woman he was in a relationship with, and I got angry,” she testified, according to the Mainichi News.
“I was waiting for the right timing because I wanted to kill him out of deep hatred,” she told News.com.au.
She acknowledged to getting the poison from a “business associate,” according to Mainichi.
“Even if I’m sentenced to death, I’m willing to die laughing,” she said, according to the Mainichi News.
According to the New York Times, Chisako’s lawyers claimed the septuagenarian had dementia.
According to Asahi News, Chisako was found guilty and condemned to hang in 2017.
In June 2021, Supreme Court justices upheld the lower court’s decision, claiming that she murdered the men for financial gain, according to Asahi News.
