The evil black widow

There was a woman dressed in yellow with a big brimmed hat.

She believes in these cold and dreaded words ‘I give happiness and then I take a life.’ On her way to the dating agency she spotted a window, catching a glance at her beauty, she says ‘those that succumb to my allure deserves everything they get.

She remembers the few who comes to her, drooling and sluggish like hypnotized fools. ‘Stop they will hear you’ she whispers her mind to sleep as she pushes open the door of the dating agency. She was so elegantly dressed, you wouldn’t mind her if she sat next to you or walked into your business unannounced.

‘What kind of fella are you looking for’ asked the agent. The poor man was keen to listen and take these down in notes, but he would not know he’s setting someone up to be murdered and bitten.

She turned herself fully towards the agent, she was feigning innocence setting loose her limbs and her voice to gladden the eyes and ear of the agent. ‘Well I’m not a rich lady, and life is hard being a single woman without a proper income, so I think I would like a guy who has a certain amount of wealth… oh and just to keep things uncomplicated, it would probably be better if he doesn’t have any children.’

In her mind she’s enjoying her cunning plan, thinking ‘oh no no no they won’t get me for this, and even if they do, and hang me, I will die with a smile on my face, men have been the bane of my life. They deserve to die.’

Her name was, Kaheki Kakehi.

Over a decade she racked up around 8.8 million from the men she killed, making her certainly the richest black widow. She made men fall for her and she was a genius when it came to that. Before she killed her man, his will would state that everything he owned would go to her.

The term black widow when related to murder is given to a woman who kills her partner or husband. Just like the female black widow spider may kill its partner.

Interestingly, those female spiders sometimes engage in what’s called ‘sexual cannibalism’, which means they kill and eat the male they have just mated with. But kaheki is more greedy than they, so we must use plural when we speak of her partners and husbands.

She was born on November 28 1946 in kitakyushu city on japans Kyushu island by parents who were so beautiful, they could not resist recreating someone just as attractive as they. She was never poor, in a middle class family she got all the Barbie’s and Ken’s she could ever ask for.

Nearing her teens, she wanted to pursue a career, and before that, gain a higher education. But her father, the wise attractive man held tightly to his traditional values and wished for her to forget about education and settle down with a good man.

Kaheki agreed that this was what she wanted to do, so she followed her fathers advice, but her idea of settling down was totally far from what her father had in mind.

And although she was beautiful, her relationship never lasted for very long (beautiful but with an ugly heart). Over the years she had serious relationships with 14 different men, and many of those guys died a mysterious death.

Nevertheless, in between these relationships she would support herself with a job as a bank teller, it was the perfect position for a woman who is so hell bent on chasing wealth, even if that meant killing the men she was suppose to love.

Her traditional father was not very happy that his 21 year old daughter still hadn’t met a man and let him support her while she did the traditional womanly thing and had children. The children she hoped none of the men would have before getting married to her.

But father wouldn’t have to be sad or disappointed for too long because a few years later she met the man of her twisted dreams. She could’ve had murder in her mind at first sight. Her father didn’t hold back his happiness, but this wasn’t only because she had settled down, but because the guy she met; would go from being a truck driver to a very successful entrepreneur with a fabric- printing company.

They also had two kids together and from the outside looking in, she was living a very ordinary life, but that was far from the truth. She had a very bloody plan in mind.

There’s something I didn’t mention about the fabric printing industry, they use something called potassium cyanide, a colourless sugar like substance, that can be used for dying and printing. This poisonous substance would come in handy for Kaheki.

Death from cyanide poisoning can look like death from a heart attack, or other natural causes, and the victim can go in a matter of seconds.

In 1994 when Kakehi was 48 and her dear dyer of a husband was 54, the man was taken into the hospital after suffering from a heart attack, or at least that’s what it looked like. After seeing a doctor, he was nursed back to health and then was told to go home. Even though he was thought to be lucky by the doctor, when he had gotten home, the night took him away into a deep slumber that he would never wake up from.

After her husbands death Kaheki took over the business, but over a period of nine years she ran it to the ground. She could never change business into murder to keep the growth above water, it was just not her strong point.

Kaheki was broke and down on her luck, but just a year after her business failure a gift pushed its way out of hell and planted itself into her path. A man of 66 who worked as a pharmaceutical wholesaler. This unfortunate man had met Kaheki through a dating agency, one of many dating agencies she would go on to use.

The relationship lasted around 3 years, but then the love struck gentleman died suddenly from what was thought to be a stroke, a type of death that cyanide posing can mimic. To those who knew her, it was starting to look like she had some pretty bad fortune when it came to husbands.

At least that’s what they thought, they didn’t know that she inherited fortunes when her beloveds passed before their time was rightly up. But kaheki was not good with money, she squandered it, making bad decisions on stocks and investments.

In public she mourned her loss but at home, she soon began cooking up her plan to meet another guy. She was no longer young at this point she was approaching 60, but in a county where people tend to live a long time, there was no shortage of aged, single and lonely men.

The lonely old man industry in Japan was booming then, and still is today.

She would get spruced up for the photo and tell the agency she was looking for a childless man who was self- made and financially secure, or at least he must earn above $80,000 a year; he had to have his own place, although she always said she didn’t much mind if the man had any pre-existing health issues.

She did not falter on the last bit when she expressed having a desire to take care of him if need be. She soon met the ideal man, a 75 year old named Toshiaki Yamamotto. He too was down on his luck and feeling all alone when Kaheki seemingly became his perfect match.

The guy was smitten with her, obsessed with her sultry charms and her way of making him feel wanted and secure. Unfortunately the relationship didn’t last very long, and this old boss who ran an agricultural cooperative, suddenly dropped dead from a heart attack just three months into their marriage.

While she was married to Yamamotto, she had met a man by the name of Toshiaki suehiro. She was cheating on that poor old man who loved his agriculture life. In 2007, Suehiro suddenly collapsed in the street, as one might do when they have been sent to death by cyanide. But the man didn’t die right away this time, and for two years he was kept on life support.

He would however die of cancer.

In 2011, she met the wonderful Mr Masanori Honda, a man who also ticked all the boxes at the dating agency that keheki was using. The two got engaged after 6 months and just as love was blossoming the man went out for a bicycle ride and never came back.

The cause of death was said to be an abnormal heart rate, or what’s known as arrhythmia. There wasn’t really a pseudo-mourning period this time, because while Kaheki was engaged to Mr Honda, she was also seeing a sickly man who’d once worked as an architect.

This man by the name of Minoru Hioki died in 2013 after having dinner with his lover. The death certificate said Mr hioki had died from cancer, but that’s highly unlikely; something in his dinner might’ve pushed him over the edge. Just weeks after he died, Kaheki married yet another man and he would be her fourth and final husband and the man whose last time she would keep.

Their relationship lasted a matter of weeks, before mister Kaheki suddenly died from what looked like natural causes.

In conclusion

The police and the media don’t exactly know just how many men Kaheki dated, or killed throughout her life. But it was becoming quite apparent that Kaheki had something of the Medusa touch in her. Not long before Kaheki was finally arrested she was interviewed by a Japanese newspaper. The poor woman was asked about her ill-starred affairs and it was pointed out that it was strange that so many of her lovers and husbands died so soon after meeting her.

Her reply:

‘ I want to know why all these things happened, I want to make it clear, I am not the type of woman who wishes to remarry. As it happens, people that I met happened to have a strong desire to marry.’

That was a lie. She was the seducer not the men. The police went to the hospital where Mr suehiro had spent two years on life support. The hospital still had blood samples from this man and it was soon revealed that cyanide was found in his blood.

Reasons to arrest:

The cops found traces of cyanide in her trash can.

Medical books at another apartment in the same city - contained advice relating to poisoning, and the administration of drugs.

At the time of her arrest in 2017, she was dating another man already, a guy that decided to attempt to convince the court that she seems like a really sweet lady.

When she was told she was going to be hanged by the neck for her crimes, she said, ‘I’ll die smiling’. But her lawyers managed to convince the court that her dementia diminished her responsibility.