Elderly Woman Was Looking for Love. Then 'Black Widow' Serial Killer Murdered 3 Men By Christine Pelisek

More than a decade after losing her husband of 25 years, Chisako Kakehi seemed to be looking for love.

The widow and printing factory employee began dating 78-year-old Toshiaki Suehiro in 2007, per CNN. However, on Dec. 18 of that year, Suehiro fell ill shortly after a lunch with Chisako and his children and was taken to the hospital.

He survived from what doctors described was internal asphyxiation, according to CNN. He died a year and a half later from cancer, per UPI.

Cupid struck again for Chisako in 2011 when she met 71-year-old Masanori Honda. The couple planned to marry, but then tragedy struck. Shortly after spending time with Chisako at a store on March 9, 2012, Hondo blacked out while riding a motorcycle and died a few hours later at the hospital, according to CNN.

Chisako soon found another new partner in Minoru Hioki, a lung cancer survivor, in 2013. On Sept. 20, after the couple dined together, Hioki passed out and later died, CNN reported. Chisako rallied again and married a smitten 75-year-old named Isao Kakehi in November 2013 – two months after Hioki’s death. The couple connected through a matchmaking service, per CNN.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

Isao would be on a mortuary slab soon enough. Just weeks after they got hitched, he collapsed after enjoying a meal with Chisako at their home in Muko, a city near Kyoto, on December 28, according to CNN.

However, Isao’s death raised red flags with police, who began investigating Chisako. An autopsy soon revealed that the salaryman died from cyanide poisoning, CNN reported. Investigators decided to take a closer look into the mysterious deaths of Honda and Hioki and the strange illness that befell Suehiro, CBS News reported.

She was arrested in 2014 for the murders of Isao, Honda and Hioki and the attempted murder of Suehiro, per the BBC. She was soon dubbed as Japan’s “Black Widow” by the media.

Prosecutors alleged she reportedly made off with around $9 million in insurance payouts and inheritance, per News.com.au. However, she lost the bulk of her ill-gotten gains in the financial markets, according to the Guardian.

During her 2017 trial at the Kyoto District Court, the then 70-year-old Chisako acknowledged that she fatally poisoned Isao. 

“I felt like (Isao) was discriminating against me (financially) in comparison to the last woman he was in a relationship with and I got angry,” she testified, according to the Mainichi News.

“I was waiting for the right timing as I wanted to kill him out of deep hatred,” she testified, per News.com.au.

She admitted to obtaining the poison from a “business associate,” per Mainichi.

“Even if I am sentenced to death, I’m prepared to die laughing,” she testified, according to the Mainichi News.

Chisako’s lawyers argued that the septuagenarian was suffering from dementia, per the New York Times.

Chisako was found guilty and sentenced to hang in 2017, per the Asahi News.

In June 2021, Supreme Court justices upheld the decision by the lower court, arguing that she murdered the men for financial gain, Asahi News reported. 

She died in a detention center in Osaka at the age 78 in Dec. 2024, per CBS News.