Man Arrested in Japan After 16-Year-Old Girl’s Body Found in Closet; Girl Had Many Stab Wounds, Cuts on Neck, Back of Head

By Gakuto Kobayashi and Arisa Nishitani / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

6:00 JST, April 3, 2025

ICHINOMIYA, Aichi — The Aichi prefectural police arrested a 21-year-old man on suspicion of abandoning a body after a 16-year-old girl’s body was found in a closet at his house in Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture.

The 16-year-old was confirmed to be a high school student from Katsushika Ward, Tokyo. According to police sources, she had many stab wounds and cuts from a sharp blade on her neck, the back of her head and other parts of her body.

The 21-year-old man was quoted as saying he stabbed her several times after they had an argument. The police are investigating the case and are considering pursing a murder charge against him.

According to the sources, the man, who lives with his parents, is suspected of abandoning her body in his closet in Kisogawacho-Kadoma in Ichinomiya on Monday evening. The body was wrapped in fabric and taped using masking tape.

An autopsy determined that she died from hemorrhagic shock.

The high school student told her mother on Friday that she was going to stay with a man, whom she met through an online game, and return Sunday, the sources said. She took a Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo Station.

After not being able to contact her on Saturday afternoon, her mother filed a missing person’s report with the Metropolitan Police Department on Saturday evening.

The MPD asked the prefectural police to look into the situation after locating an area near the man’s house by tracking the high school student’s smartphone. Investigators from the Ichinomiya police station went to the house around 10:30 p.m. on Monday and found the body.

The police made an emergency arrest of the man, as he admitted to abandoning the body.

“He seems to do things at his own pace and doesn’t like talking to people,” said a 75-year-old woman who worked with him at a supermarket in the city until summer last year. “He told me that he plays games at home all the time. He said he was going to quit his job at the supermarket because he found a job at a construction site.”

A man in his 20s who lives near the arrested said he was a quiet when he was a junior high student.

“I can’t believe he would do something like this,” he said.