Japan A 29-year-old man confessed to killing 9 people after luring them to commit suicide through social media.

During the October 1 trial in Tokyo court, Takahiro Shiraishi admitted all charges related to the killing and decapitation of eight young women and one man in 2017 in the case that shook Japan.

He claimed to find women who expressed suicide intentions on Twitter and other social media platforms, then took them to his apartment in Zama, about 40 km southwest of Tokyo and sexually assaulted,

The case forced Japanese authorities to monitor and block websites with people expressing suicidal thoughts.

The male victim was the boyfriend of a woman that Shiraishi killed.

Shiraishi could be sentenced to death if convicted.

The defendant was shot in 19/2017 when a victim's brother found Shiraishi's message to his sister via Twitter after she went missing.

When the police arrived at Shiraishi's house, he said that the body of the girl they were looking for was in the freezer.

"I killed them and cut their bodies to hide evidence," he told police.

Neighbors said they smelled a bad smell coming from the apartment after the defendant moved in in August 2017, but did not report it to the police.

The prosecutor said the defendant opened a Twitter account in March 2017 to "contact women with suicidal intentions, whom he considers easily accessible targets".