[imagesource: Kyodo]

74-year-old Chisako Kakehi may look like a regular Japanese lady, but she is one of Japan’s few female serial killers, dubbed the ‘Black Widow’.

Kakehi was sentenced to death in 2017 when police found out she had poisoned her husband in 2013.

He died less than two months after their wedding and the autopsy report found cyanide in his stomach and blood.

After that, police put everything together and realised Kakehi had poisoned three of her previous partners, too.

One other had crashed on his motorcycle but also had traces of cyanide in his body.

According to CNN, police would only say “many” of Kakehi’s previous partners, who were between ages 54 and 75, had died in the past two decades.

She wasted no time after their deaths to go through the process of inheriting their assets and getting their insurance to pay her out immediately, said a judge in 2017.

The killings spanned time and space, occurring between 2007 and 2013 in Kyoto, Osaka, and Hyogo.

Now her legal team is trying to appeal the death sentence, but the Supreme Court is having none of it.

Kakehi’s lawyers had earlier this month claimed her dementia has gotten progressively worse and she does not understand that she has been taking part in a criminal trial.

But the Supreme Court has rejected her appeal and finalised the decision on Tuesday, according to Kakehi’s lawyer:

“She used the matchmaking agency to get acquainted with elderly victims one after another and poisoned them after making them trust her,” said Judge Yuriko Miyazaki in the ruling, according to NHK.

“It is a ruthless crime based on a planned and strong murderous intention.”

Miyazaki added that “even with due consideration given to the defendant’s favourable circumstances, such as being old, the death penalty is unavoidable.”

The Japan Times reports that Kakehi had registered with a matchmaking service and had married or was associated with more than 10 men.

They also mentioned that she had inherited about ¥1 billion (around R128 million), but had eventually fallen into debt following her attempts to speculate in stock and futures trading.

Luckily, they caught her before husband number five.

[sources:cnn&japantimes]