The Weapons of Serial Killer Kanae Kijima

Staged Suicides, Vulnerable Victims, Comfort Food, and a Pack of Lies

On February 5, 2025, the foodie mystery book Butter was the #1 Sunday Times bestseller. It was also the winner of Waterstones 2024 Book of the Year. But for you, me, and those who dwell in the world of predators and victims, the inspiration behind it tells a more informative tale. It is the story of Japanese serial killer Kanae Kijima and how she used cultural norms and gender role expectations to murderous advantage.

The Backdrop

Suicide claims over 20,000 Japanese lives every year. As such, discovering a body beside a charcoal burner rarely raises suspicion. Kanae Kijima knew this. Between 2007 and 2009, she seduced and murdered at least three men, staging their murders as suicides as a shield for her crimes.

But Kijima wasn't just exploiting Japan's suicide statistics; she weaponized every societal norm she could access. She found targets through "konkatsu" matchmaking parties, a tradition supported by the Japanese government since the late 2000s in response to a declining marriage rate. She also preyed on common gender stereotypes, adopting various nurturing personas and tantalizing her victims with traditional home-cooked meals packed with sedatives before finishing them off.

Early Life

Born in 1974 in Nakashibetsu, Hokkaido, Kanae Kijima grew up in a household where appearances mattered. Her grandfather's position as a local politician afforded the family respectability and a certain degree of prominence in their local community. Her mother was ambitious in what witnesses later described as an "education-obsessed" household. Kanae believed that academic success was all that mattered to her.

It mattered to her father as well, but not when it came to his daughter. Kanae's father refused to pay for her college education, believing advanced learning was unsuitable for females. Kanae did enroll in Tokyo University's economics program but dropped out because she couldn't afford the tuition. The end of her formal education was a turning point in Kanae's life; estranged from and rejected by her mother, she developed some seriously maladaptive ways of regaining a sense of status and self-respect. Some of these involved breaking the law.

Criminal Evolution

Kanae's criminal career began early. At age nineteen, she and a forty-year-old boyfriend pulled off a significant theft, stealing ¥8 million (approximately $73,000) from an acquaintance. Despite the severity of the crime, she was given probation due to her young age. This early incident established a pattern that would define her later crimes: using romantic relationships as vehicles for financial gain.

Instead of thanking her lucky stars and learning her lesson, Kanae modified her financial ambitions. She became a serial shoplifter. She was arrested in 1999 for stealing cosmetics; in 2000, she was caught stealing books. In 2003, she was charged and convicted of internet auction fraud, her first adult criminal conviction.

The Evolution of a Predator

By the mid-2000s, Kijima had upped her game. She was after serious money, and she didn't care what she had to do to get it: lie, cheat, or kill. She began trolling for lonely men, creating a persona that fit what her target was looking for.

For one, she claimed to be the daughter of a University of Tokyo professor. For others, a piano instructor, nurse, or a chef. She created the alias "Sakura Yoshikawa," a worldly and wealthy woman who drove a (rented) Mercedes and stayed at the Ritz-Carlton (using previous victims' money). Her cultivated image of refined sophistication disarmed her targets and hid her predatory intent.

The Murder Methodology

Kijima began each murder with an elaborate meal, often serving sedative-laced homemade beef stew or fried chicken. As her plans unfolded, she was attentive and nurturing to her target. At trial, one of her survivors, Naoki Yasuda, recalled how disarming she was: "The food was delicious... She made tea without asking. I thought she'd make a great wife."

Her preparation was meticulous. Using different aliases, she purchased charcoal briquettes (yeontan) in bulk. She strategically selected her killing locations, preferring either isolated spots or victims' homes where she could maintain maximum control. For some murders, she rented cars, ensuring both mobility and privacy while leaving minimal traces of her presence.

The staging of each "suicide" followed a precise pattern. Once Kijima's victims were unconscious from the sedative-laced meals, she would position them carefully with charcoal burners, removing any evidence of her presence, such as keys, matchboxes, and personal items. She banked on the common use of carbon monoxide poisoning as a method of suicide to increase the odds that investigators would accept these deaths as voluntary acts. She chose her victims well, ensuring they were vulnerable and misled-selected to be vulnerable and easily misled.

A November 3, 2009 search of Kijima's Tokyo apartment revealed a methodical killer's toolkit. Police discovered:

• Multiple prescriptions for sleeping pills from at least ten different doctors

• Cold remedies and other drugs known to induce drowsiness

• A mortar and pestle containing traces of the same sleeping medication found in Oide's body

• Records of online purchases of charcoal briquettes

• Documentation of her various aliases and dating site profiles

During her trial, Kijima attempted to explain away the mortar and pestle evidence, claiming she ground her own sleeping pills because "I didn't want the staff at the pension where I often stayed to know what kind of medicine I took "[The Yomiuri Shimbun, February 19, 2012].

Voice of the Victims

Kijima is suspected of more murders than the three for which she was convicted. For instance, police investigated Sadao Fukuyama's death, a shop manager who was found dead after loaning Kijima ¥74 million. She had convinced him she needed money for music studies in the US, claiming her parents had died in a plane crash. Unfortunately, they were not able to find enough evidence to charge her.

These three, though, tell a story about the manipulation and deviousness of a female serial killer and the men she targeted. For example, there was fifty-three-year-old Takao Terada, a white-collar worker who worked steadily for the same company after graduating from college. Typically, these employees, known as "salarymen," worked excruciatingly long hours, leaving them little time for dating and marriage. By middle age, Terada was lonely and looking for love.

Eighty-year-old Kenzo Ando was the wealthy son of a renowned painter. He was looking for companionship in his twilight years, and Kanae Kijima pretended to be a perfect fit. Through a konkatsu website, she crafted the image of a compassionate nurse dedicated to elder care. This persona proved devastatingly effective; Ando, living alone with valuable artwork inherited from his father, was thrilled.

The youngest and perhaps most poignant of Kijima's confirmed victims was forty-one-year-old Yoshiyuki Oide. Yoshiyuki epitomized the vulnerability of Japan's marriage-seeking population. A Tokyo office worker with dreams of marriage and entrepreneurship, he found in Kijima what seemed to be the perfect partner: a business-minded woman who shared his ambitions and dreams.

How The Cases Unraveled

Kijima's careful facade began cracking as damaging evidence came to light. The January 2009 discovery of Terada's body in his Ōme home initially seemed like another tragic suicide in Japan's epidemic of middle-aged male deaths. Terada's computer and keys were missing, and investigators found 20kg of charcoal he had never purchased. Most tellingly, while the scene was staged to suggest suicide, forensic evidence revealed sedatives in his system and no signs he had handled the charcoal himself.

The investigation would later reveal a pattern of meetings between Terada and Kijima, including elaborate meals she prepared at his home. Bank records showed systematic withdrawals that drained his savings in the days leading up to his death, with security footage placing Kijima at several ATM locations using his card. In the weeks before his death, she stole ¥17 million from his accounts.

Police first thought Kenzo Ando died in a house fire. The fire, forensics later proved, had been set to cover evidence of carbon monoxide poisoning. Most damningly, there was no charcoal residue in Ando's throat, contradicting the suicide scenario. Autopsy results also revealed that Ando had ingested sleeping pills at ten times the usual dosage.

Was Ando vulnerable or was Kijima skilled? A neighbor later described Ando as a sophisticated and worldly person who would not have been easily fooled: "He was thrifty and careful. She must've been very persuasive." This observation highlighted how Kijima's play-acting overcame the natural caution of savvy victims.

Oide's blog post just 24 hours before his death: "At 41, I'm actually looking forward to getting married, and today I'll meet my partner's family." Within hours of writing this hopeful message, he had transferred ¥5 million to Kijima's account. She persuaded him to give her large sums of money under the pretense of opening a shared business venture. Shortly after, he was dead. His body was discovered in August 2009 in a rental car in Fujimi, Saitama. Banking records would later show systematic withdrawals, with Kijima using his accounts even after his death.

Surviving victims also testified. Naoki Yasuda, who narrowly escaped becoming another victim, described how she convinced him to transfer money: "She said she needed ¥2.4 million for a cake shop. I gave it without question." His account helped establish her pattern of financial exploitation before attempted murder.

The financial investigation into Kijima's affairs may have been the nail in the coffin. Investigators traced a pattern of large transfers immediately preceding each death: ¥74 million from Fukuyama and ¥17 million from Terada just days before he died. Each victim's bank account was drained in the days leading up to their deaths.

Records from konkatsu websites revealed her network of aliases, while security footage placed her near multiple crime scenes. Investigators also traced bulk purchases of charcoal and sedatives to her various identities, building a compelling pattern of premeditation. She was convicted and sentenced to death.

Cultural Context: How Society's Blind Spots Enabled a Killer

The Kijima case exposed deep-rooted cultural dynamics within Japanese society that inadvertently enabled her crimes. At the heart of her methodology lay the exploitation of konkatsu (marriage-hunting) culture, a phenomenon that reflects Japan's complex relationship with marriage and social status. For many Japanese men, particularly those in their later years, remaining unmarried carries a profound social stigma. This pressure creates a pool of vulnerable individuals desperate for connection, a vulnerability Kijima expertly exploited.

The media's response to Kijima revealed cultural biases as well. Japanese tabloids fixated on her appearance, repeatedly describing her as "ugly and fat," expressing disbelief that such an "unattractive" woman could manipulate multiple men. This fixation on her looks exposed a deeper societal assumption: a woman's power stems primarily from physical beauty. Ironically, these very prejudices worked in Kijima's favor. Who would suspect the plain, motherly woman serving home-cooked meals of being a calculating killer?

Perhaps most crucially, Kijima weaponized Japan's complex relationship with suicide. In a nation where suicide claims over 20,000 lives annually, the discovery of a body beside a charcoal burner rarely triggers immediate suspicion. Carbon monoxide poisoning through charcoal burning had become a tragically common method, particularly among middle-aged men facing financial or personal crises. By staging her murders to mimic this cultural pattern, Kijima exploited law enforcement's predisposition to accept suicide as an explanation, especially for older men found dead alone.

Her use of traditional feminine roles—cooking elaborate meals and pretending to be a loving partner —played into deeply ingrained cultural expectations about women's behavior. In Japanese society, where domestic skills are still highly valued in potential wives, Kijima's displays of culinary expertise and maternal care disarmed both victims and investigators. She transformed cultural assumptions about feminine nurturing into lethal weapons, serving death disguised as comfort food.

The Beat Goes On

Kanae Kijima has married twice since her conviction: a Tokyo businessman she became pen pals with during her trial and a man she married as she awaits execution. In December of 2013, she established a blog where she continues to update her male supporters. She has also attracted pen pals and admirers.

Recent research has challenged the long-standing assumption that psychopathy and narcissism are rarely female personality traits; they tend to manifest in more socially acceptable and less overtly aggressive ways, making them harder to diagnose. Kijima is a real-world example.

Because traditional diagnostic tools emphasize physically violent and impulsive behaviors, they may also underestimate the number of female psychopaths or the havoc they wreak in personal relationships and the workplace. Gender stereotypes have contributed to a diagnostic system that misses women who harm others through more devious ways.

In reality, psychopathy wears many masks. Some are painted with a smile.

As always, thank you for reading The Mind Detective. Please pass along to your true-crime-following friends. If there’s a case you’d like me to cover, please let me know!