Kidnapping and murder of girls in Japan

(Baonghean.vn) - Before the murder of 9-year-old Vietnamese girl Le Thi Nhat Linh, living near Matsudo city in Japan on March 24, Japan had witnessed many kidnappings of girls in previous years.

» Portrait of the suspect in the murder of baby Nhat Linh

» Suspect arrested for murdering Vietnamese girl in Japan

1. November 17, 2004

Kaede Ariyama, a 7-year-old first-grader from Nara Prefecture, was abducted by Kaoru Kobayashi, a 36-year-old newspaper delivery man, while she was on her way home from school. After the abduction, Kobayashi even took Ariyama's cell phone and sent photos to her mother with the message: "I'm holding your daughter."

2. 2005

Airi Kinoshita was only 7 years old when she was murdered. Photo: Internet

7-year-old Airi Kinoshita, living in Hiroshima city, Japan, was kidnapped, sexually abused and murdered. The murderer was identified as a 45-year-old man, of Peruvian and Japanese nationality named Jose Manuel Torres Yake.

A local resident discovered her body in an empty lot in Aki Ward, Hiroshima City. Police said the killer lured her as she was returning from school. Her school bag was found just 300 meters away.

3. January 2014

It is normal in Japan for children as young as 6 or 7 years old to walk to school alone. Photo: Reuters

Michi Shinozaki, an 11-year-old fifth-grader in Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, went missing while walking her dog. Four days later, Shinozaki called the police to rescue her at a location 25 kilometers away from her home.

The perpetrator, a 30-year-old man who works for an IT company in Machida City, was arrested on charges of kidnapping and child detention. He is married and has children but is living separately from his family. He confessed to forcing Shinozaki into a car at knifepoint and driving to his apartment in Chigasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture.

4. January 27, 2014

Third-grader Rina Hataya in Sapporo was kidnapped by 27-year-old Hajime Matsui and held captive in his apartment for nearly a week. The kidnapping occurred after Hataya asked her mother to go out to buy a notebook.

Matsui’s apartment is just 350 meters from Hataya’s home. In November 2014, a court in Sapporo sentenced Hajime Matsui to seven years in prison for kidnapping and keeping a child. Hataya’s parents were unhappy and said the sentence was too lenient. They said Matsui showed no remorse and their daughter was still suffering from psychological trauma.

5. July 14, 2014

Takeshi Fujiwara. Photo: rocketnews24.

Fifth grader Sakura Moriyama in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture, was kidnapped by a man named Takeshi Fujiwara on her way home from school just a few hundred meters from her home.

Takeshi Fujiwara, 49, was later arrested for kidnapping and holding Moriyama captive at his home for five days. Fujiwara confessed to forcing the victim into his car with a box cutter and following him home. He had previously followed her several times.

The room where Fujiwara held the victim was renovated in 2013, with soundproofing and windows removed, suggesting that the kidnapping had been planned in advance. The police quickly solved the case thanks to the victim's mother's memorization of the license plate number of the suspicious car at the scene of the kidnapping as well as the GPS location of Moriyama's mobile phone.

6. September 9, 2014

Some criminals kidnap Japanese girls on their way to school, sometimes very close to home. Illustrative photo

A seventh-grader in Yachimata City, Chiba Prefecture, was kidnapped at knifepoint by a 25-year-old man while on her way home from school. He drove her to his home and released her an hour later. The victim remembered the license plate number, which helped police track down and arrest him on charges of kidnapping with intent to commit sexual assault and illegal detention. Police said the suspect was unemployed.

7. March 27, 2016

The perpetrator kidnapped a 15-year-old girl for 2 years. Photo: Internet

A little girl stood at a public telephone pole at Higashi-Nakano Station in Tokyo, frantically calling her mother. Unexpectedly receiving a call from her daughter after nearly 2 years, the mother was told that her daughter had escaped while the kidnapper had gone out and forgotten to lock the door. The story immediately caused a stir in Japanese public opinion.

According to the victim, she was initially locked in the perpetrator’s apartment near his university in Chiba, before moving to Tokyo last month. During this time, she was almost always locked inside the house.

Kim Ngoc

(Synthetic)