Crime & Courts

Mother Denies Helping Daughter Suspected of Beheading Man

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
The hotel where a decapitated man’s body was found is seen in Sapporo.

Jiji Press

17:24 JST, June 5, 2024

SAPPORO (Jiji Press) — The mother of a 30-year-old woman charged with killing and beheading a man in Sapporo last July denied Tuesday that she provided assistance to the daughter.

“I didn’t intend to help,” Hiroko Tamura, the 61-year-old mother, said in the first hearing held by the Sapporo District Court.

Her husband, Osamu, a 60-year-old doctor, has also been indicted along with their daughter, Runa, for allegedly helping Runa in the case.

Making an opening statement, the prosecution first said that Runa killed the 62-year-old corporate worker, beheaded the man with a saw at a hotel in the Susukino entertainment district and brought the decapitated head back home using Osamu’s car driven by the father himself.

Then the prosecution claimed that the mother continued normal life while allowing the daughter to hide the head in their house and that she, at the request of Runa, asked the husband via social media to take a video of the daughter damaging the severed body part.