Nova teacher murdered

Young westerners dying in Japan is rare. I recall the Lucie Blackman case mentioned at the bottom of this one. The only thing more out of the ordinary than these two cases involving foreigners dying is when two western men killed themselves in a double suicide by jumping from a high floor of the Keio Hotel in Shinjuku.

Source

 

This is all over the BBC and on a couple of national front pages tomorrow according to Newsnight.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6498019.stm

Only 22 years old, a year younger than me, same age as my gf. She graduated from Leeds last year, I'm graduating from Sheffield this year and I'm also planning to teach in Japan. She's even on Facebook. A little too close to home. Unsettling.

 

Bloody hell, now this is something out of the ordinary ! Sounds like another F*cked in the head case of a Japanese. There are very really any murders in Japan but when they do occur they are always due to the killer being a nut. The last one (Also in Tokyo) was a woman who killed her husband because she couldn't put up with him. !! GET A DIVORCE !! She killed him in his sleep then cut up the body and placed the pieces around various points in Tokyo. They she completely redecorated the apartment to hide any traces of blood. Next called the police to tell them that her husband was missing. MAD ! This was a few months ago.

Yakumo

 

The gal's father & boyfriend arrived in Japan and made an announcement on the news. Very sad. I can't imagine how shitty that flight was over here. 10 hours to think about it.

Like Yakumo said, the amount of murders per capita in Japan is low, but the shock factor is amongst the highest. I assume due to lack of guns they have to get creative. Just my take on it. I recall a middle school student beheading a primary school student on a visit here in 1998 I believe it was.

I live a stone's throwing distance from their mansion, FYI. Literally, about 200 meters. She dumped part of the body down the street. There were cops everywhere that day.

 

I'm sure the overwhelming social pressure in some areas drives people to extremes. Getting a divorce (although on the rise) would lower one's social standing, but a husband "disappearing" would not reflect as badly on you.

 

there use to be a time when killing people was as easy and care-free as settling a dispute. Humans can't be civilized it seems, our primal instincts interefere sometimes, despite the law

 

I live in a city renowned for its violence. You cannot mention "Glasgow" without people immediately sucking in their breath and looking at you funnily. Usually you get the drinking, smoking, bad health, poor living and violent culture jokes before anyone realises what a cosmopolitan city it really is. It is a surprise to me that Japan has such a low murder rate, especially the large cities (far bigger than Glasgow). It does go some way to prove that Britain (and other western countries) have deeply routed social issues that other cultures seem capable of dealing with.

The vast majority of murders that seem to occur are either related to drink, drugs or sexual issues (prostitution being an issue). I genuinely wished I lived in a society that was still as socked as to mention the death of anyone, but it only really happens when the victim or the murderer is either very young or the murder was particularly bloody!

Last year a young Polish girl was murdered in Glasgow and that really shocked the city a great deal. Prior to that a 15 year old white youth was picked up at random by a group of asians. That was horrific. Stabbed and then set alight and left to die on the banks of the river.

In all honesty, I don't think Glasgow deserves the reputation it has. Once upon a time it was a very different, dark and at times lawless city (the only mainland UK city to have ever had the army called in tanks to curb protestors (Red Clydeside)) but now it is like any other city in the UK. Just the reputation remains. Britain seems a volatile & violent place all over. Just look at the spate of stabbings that have been committed by school kids against their peers!

The BBC are all over this story, primarily because it sees to have been such an horrific death and bizarre concealment (a bath filled with sand, exposed to the elements on a balcony!)

I feel very sorry for the family, she had her whole life ahead of her.

 

Yeah, when a Japanese person snaps, they really lose it. Much, much lower crime but some of the absolutely horrific nature of the crimes is uncomfortable to think about. I arrived in Japan in 2000 when the Blackman story was in full swing. Some others:

** In Fukuoka an elderly man threw gas on a young boy and lit him on fire as he was walking downt he street.

** Recently a lady was fined for stealing a dog, then throwing it off of her balcony to it's death when the owner arrived suspecting she had it.

** Lucy Blackman....head found encased in concrete.

** A couple of months ago two separate men were arrested for driving their cars into groups of school children walking down the street.

And I swear...I've heard at least a half dozen stories about people being kidnapped and kept in a closet or room for years. One guy kept a girl in a closet for 9 friggen years. He lived with his grandmother and she said she knew nothing about it. Utterly insane.

Another growing trend is starving or beating to death babies. One lady was just sentenced to 14 years in prison for starving her son to death.

Japan is nice and safe....but when someone snaps, they really, really snap.

 

It still makes me a little worried about whether I really want to come visit. It is only a small country....

Dear god, man. You could be standing 10... no, 5 feet away from one of those ungodly terrorists you see on the televisual!

*puffs pipe.... wiggles one eyebrow... puts tartan slippers on and calls his girlfriend Marjorie*

 

I had been here for about two years by then. It was pretty big news, but she was a hostess, so was at least understandable -- some sick guy picked her up, and the rest is history.

Some others I can recall:
-A famous "bara bara" (dismemberment) case where body parts were found in Inokoashira Koen. Suspect never found. This actually happened years ago I believe. It's a somewhat famouse case.

-The decapitation mentioned above, where the junior high kid cut off the head of an elementary student w/ a cable.

-More than a few cases of some nut losing it in a crowd and stabbing people

-The guy jumping off a mere 6 or 7 story building (Keio Mall in Shijuku) to commit suicide, landing on someone in the process and not dying. I think the person he fell on died though.

-The nutbag the bum-rushed the cockpit, stabbed the pilot and took control of a commercial airplane. Of course, it was blamed on his addiction to video games. I think it took him 10 seconds to realize he couldn't do it and the co-pilot took over.

 

>>Don't come where I live then, we had 22 murders so far just this year.
I've lived in Glasgow most my life and now live in the same state as Assembler. No doubt in my mind that NJ is worse! Newark is scary. The local free paper has countless number of murders and violent attacks.

I've only been 'jumped' once in Glasgow and put int hospital for 1 week and amongst my friends that's unusual....most of my friend haven't had any personal hassles......Glasgow is a pretty safe place.

I recently asked three friends from NY/NJ and only one had ever even seen a gun in their life......

I think sometimes things get blown out of context. I think population numbers vs attacks is a better guage/metric....

Looks like Philidelphia is near US worse state...
http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/02/20/murder-capital/

 

Well, here in Liverpool violence is traditional , I m sure you ve all heard stories.

Alcohol is the usual suspect as in most cases, followed by other drugs - you never hear a stoner killing someone though!

Sexual frustration is another leading cause, especially amongst strictly religious individuals in general, not just Liverpool(Catholics?)

I guess I m more against alcohol than any drug, because of its potential for abuse by people and its easy availability. On that note however, I confess that UK drinkers have an issue with drinking. In greece people know when to stop usually, whereas here it's seen as a national sport of sorts getting hammerred etc. Moderation should be introduced to the otherwised civilized world of UK when it comes to alcohol, weed and other drugs

Drugs aside though, there's always psychos to rely on for those juicy stats!

 

The UK would be a much safer place if there was a ban on football.

 

The hooliganism thing is pretty dead these days. Too much money involved. Rival firms still fight, but it's all pre-organised and usually done away from the ground with no-one wearing colours. Sorta like Fight Club in a way.

 

:lol: as much as I love that statement you'll probably find the thugs (yeah practically all of them are footie fans) will become more bothersome due to having even less in their pitiful lives.

By the way GaijinPunch, you missed out a case this year where a nutcase junior high boy stabbed the shit out of a female class mate then because she wouldn't date him. Also I remember one from a year or so back when a 16 year old boy bashed his mother's head in with a baseball bad then hung himself. Yep, Japan is very safe but the Japanese people just can't handle pressure without snapping like a psycho. My own wife snapped once and stabbed me in the head with the bloody car keys !! Fucking nuts h: ! Thank God I'm a lot taller and stronger than her.

Yakumo

 

"...My own wife snapped once and stabbed me in the head with the bloody car keys !! Fucking nuts ! Thank God I'm a lot taller and stronger than her...."

Christ! Where did you ended up get stabbed since you are taller than her?

 

He didn't say *which* head got stabbed!

-hl718

 

Assembler - 22 Murders? Holy crap!

Yakumo - I guess car keys (being fairly blunt) must have really hurt! :banghead: Should we ask what the arguement was about, just so we know not to make the same mistake?

Barc0de - Alcohol isn't the problem per se, it's a growing trend in binge drinking partially caused by the easy of access to alcohol (every supermarket, corner shop & thousands of pubs per city), plummeting prices & the prevailing attitude that alcohol is not such a bad drug. I disagree. It's the lax attitude to alcohol and its effects. It is actually a very dangerous drug, it just takes time to kill you.

Walking through the city centre on Friday or Saturday night sober is a weird alien situation. You see a very different culture stumbling, staggering and vomiting its way from bar to bar. Its definately increasing as older groups tend to show the same behaviour. It is definately the #1 strain on the NHS plus I suspect a massive future issue for the health of the nation.

It used to just be students drunk on cheap beer from the Union bars. Now all the banks have turned into trendy theme bars and Glasgow in particular has become a stag / hen night destination.

BTW you said "you've never heard of a stoner murdering someone". Well, just to prove you wrong a young man was charged with murdering his two teenage friends because they were jibing him about his broken home life (a particularly nasty thing to do) and he lost the plot stabbing both of them multiple times. One of the victims was so badly attacked that his head was almost completely removed! (That was on the news last week)

Bert Hardy - Hail fellow well met ;-) What dragged you to US? I once had someone attempt to attack me on Sauchiehall Street, but his punch was pathetic and I ducked left like a pro. That startled him so much that he ran off! <They don't make Glasgow muggers like they used too>

I've had 2 guns pulled on me in my life. Once in rural France (who gets a gun pulled on them in the Alps ffs!?) and the other in the suburbs of Glasgow when a guy tried to hold up a local store.