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Today, we are discussing another case for the deadly women series and our black widow
is Chisako Kakehi.
Let’s get into it.
In late 2013, seventy-five-year-old Isao Kakehi and sixty-seven-year-old Chisako Kakehi were
at the altar exchanging vows.
Both of the Japanese seniors had been married before — this was Isao’s second marriage
and Kakehi’s fourth.
They had met on a matchmaking website and married soon after.
In an email to Isao, Kakehi wrote, “I will stay with you for the rest of my life.”
But less than two months later, on December 28th, 2013, Isao died suddenly.
He had collapsed in their home in Muko, just outside of Kyoto, Japan.
Kakehi was reportedly inconsolable when police interviewed her, and they almost closed the
case — until the autopsy results came in.
Autopsies aren’t a normal occurrence in the death culture of Japan.
They are generally only done at the request of police, and because Japan has such a low
rate of crime they are very rare.
However, an officer had interviewed Kakehi and discovered that she had been married four
times and had died in similar manners so that officer made sure to look deeper into the
matter.
The post-mortem examination had uncovered a lethal dose of hydrocyanic acid, aka cyanide,
in Mr. Kakehi’s blood and stomach.
Police started to suspect Kakehi’s involvement in her husband’s death.
They soon started to unravel Kakehi’s long history of murdered husbands and boyfriends,
which spanned decades.
Kakehi was born Chisako Yamamoto on November 28th, 1946, and was raised in Fukuoka, Japan.
She had been a bright student and wanted to go to university but her father wouldn’t
allow her to due to his belief that women didn’t need higher education.
She was a bank teller and enjoyed working but was forced to leave work in 1969 when
she met and married her first husband.
Her new husband owned a successful fabric painting company.
The couple had two children together and her husband provided a comfortable life for the
family.
In 1994, her fifty-four-year-old husband suffered a heart attack and was sent to the hospital.
He spent a few days there and after recovering significantly he was deemed fit to leave and
was discharged.
Though within days of him returning home he died and it was thought to have been related
to his previous heart condition.
After her husband’s death, Chisako took over her husband’s company but under the
inexperienced leadership, the company collapsed.
Less than a year later, Chisako lost all the wealth her husband had accumulated and declared
bankruptcy.
In the bankruptcy, she lost the business and her home.
An interesting fact about the fabric painting business, cyanide is used as a part of the
commercial printing process.
This led investigators to believe which police suspect is how Kakehi was introduced to the
poison and gave her unfettered access.
In 2004, she met and married a pharmaceutical wholesaler who she met through a dating agency.
Two years later, he died from a stroke at age sixty-nine.
She then married seventy-five-year-old Toshiaki Yamamoto in 2008, who suffered a heart attack
three months after their wedding.
The couple had been at a restaurant and heading home when he collapsed in the street.
He was rushed to the hospital and was put on life support before his death.
Again, it was ruled as a natural cause due to his age.
At the time, the deaths of her husbands weren’t deemed suspicious, so all of their bodies
were cremated.
But after Isao’s murder, the police took a look back at the pattern that had emerged
and started investigating Kakehi further.
During their investigation, law enforcement discovered she had likely attempted to kill
her fiance, Toshiaki Suehiro, with cyanide back in 2007.
He survived the attempted murder because he only drank a small amount of the poison, though
he died two years later of cancer.
Police found traces of cyanide in a stool sample that was kept by the hospital.
In 2012, and man she was in a relationship with, Masanori Honda, who was seventy-one,
died while riding his minibike.
His death was thought to be caused by an arrhythmia, or abnormal heart rate.
In 2013, she became involved with retired architect Minoru Hioki, who was seventy-five.
He got sick after they had dinner together and died soon after.
At the time, his cause of death was thought to be lung cancer.
Soon after Minoru’s death, she married Isao Kakehi.
He was a retired salaryman and had been covered by life insurance at his time of death.
The couple again had been set up using a matchmaking service.
Law enforcement learned that on Chisako’s used ten different matchmaking agencies and
her profile she had very specific requirements for future partners.
Elderly, without children, wealthy, and owned his own home.
Law enforcement determined that she had a pattern.
When she found a new boyfriend or husband, she would change her last name to theirs and
immediately open multiple bank accounts.
It’s reported that she pocketed at least one billion yen (roughly $9.1 million) in
insurance and inheritance payouts over ten years.
However, she lost much of it too failed investments and financial trading.
Kakehi was arrested in November 2014, eleven months after Isao’s murder.
She was charged with the murder of Isao Kakehi, the murder of two of her boyfriends, and the
attempted murder of Toshiaki Suehiro.
She wasn’t charged in connection with the deaths of her three previous husbands as to
much time had passed and they had been cremated.
Upon her arrest, law enforcement was able to search her home.
Police suspect Kakehi would kill the men with capsules or drinks laced with cyanide.
After searching both of her homes in Osaka and Muko, they confiscated possible evidence,
including medical books, pill capsules, and wafers used to wrap powdered medicine.
They also found traces of cyanide in a plant pot that she had thrown in the garbage.
Her trial began in 2017 and she was seventy when it started and the trial drew a lot of
media attention.
Kakehi was quickly dubbed “The Black Widow” or “The Poison Lady” by Japanese media.
According to investigators, she was romantically involved with approximately ten men over the
years and had been involved in the deaths of eight of them.
During the time between Isao’s death and her arrest, she had started seeing two new
men.
One, a man in his eighties, took the stand as a witness in her trial.
He had met Kakehi on a matchmaking website and was immediately taken by her charm, and
after their fourth meeting, he gave her his house key.
He said he’d been lonely after his wife died and wanted to live with Kakehi, but he
had broken up with her after receiving a warning about her from the police.
Kakehi initially stated that she would remain silent during defense questioning, so her
lawyers pleaded not guilty on her behalf.
But then she stunned the court by admitting to the murder of Isao, saying, “I killed
my husband.
I was waiting for the right timing as I wanted to kill him out of deep hatred.”
She also told the court, “I have no intention of hiding the guilt.
I will laugh it off and die if I am sentenced to death tomorrow.”
She later retracted her statement, saying she had no recollection of it.
Her lawyers said that Kakehi was suffering from dementia and her statements could not
be considered credible.
Kakehi was found guilty on three murder charges and on one count of attempted murder and was
sentenced to hang by the Kyoto District Court.
Her lawyer appealed the sentence, calling it unjust, as she had early-stage dementia
and the prosecution failed to prove how she obtained and stored the cyanide.
The court acknowledged she had developed dementia around 2015 but determined she was competent
to stand trial as the disease was progressing slowly and her symptoms weren’t serious.
The ruling was later upheld by the Osaka High Court in 2019.
Judge Hiroaki Higuchi rejected her lawyer’s claims that she couldn’t be held responsible
for her crimes due to her dementia, stating that her crimes were premeditated and she
properly understood the situation.
After her arrest, Japan’s criminal justice system was scrutinized for not investigating
several of her previous partners’ deaths as suspicious.
Autopsies weren’t performed for many of the victims when they died, but if they had
been, the police could have stopped Kakehi from killing more men.
In June of 2021, the Supreme Court of Japan upheld Kakehi’s death sentence ruling.
Judge Yuriko Miyazaki stated, “She used the matchmaking agency to get acquainted with
elderly victims one after another and poisoned them after making them trust her.
It is a ruthless crime based on a planned and strong murderous intention.”
The judge also stated that even taking into consideration her age, the death penalty was
unavoidable.
The date of her death sentence has not been released as in Japan, inmates on death row
do not know their sentence is being carried out until moments before it happens.
Well, that is it for this video.
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