A Phone Call Made by the Grandmother of the Junior High School who Stabbed Her Mother to Death

I hardly ever saw them. Some of the neighbors didn’t even know they lived there. I don’t think they were out much. The house where the tragedy took place used to be a large Japanese-style house, and it was renovated about 10 years ago.

The tragedy occurred in Makinohara, Shizuoka, a quiet town with nothing but mountains and the sea.

Late at night on January 16, a 13-year-old girl in her first year of junior high school in this town stabbed her mother to death with a kitchen knife while she was sleeping. The girl told the police that she got into trouble over the use of her smartphone. What happened between mother and daughter?

The mother, Y, grew up in the house where the incident took place, with a grandfather who was known as a prominent figure in the local community and who was a manager at a major machinery company. Y was quiet in elementary and junior high school, but her behavior changed when she entered high school.

She smoked cigarettes and finally dropped out of high school. After that, I didn’t hear anything about her for a while, but I heard that she got married to someone from the next town. Things didn’t go well with his family over there, and they divorced around the same time their daughter, A, was born, and she returned to his parents’ home in Makinohara. I heard that she was doing her best to raise her child on her own, so I was shocked to hear about this .” (a classmate of the mother’s from junior high school).

When A was a child, her grandmother often let her play in front of the house in place of her mother, who was late getting home because of work. However, as A grew up, the mother and daughter were seldom seen outside together.

The last time I saw the mother and daughter together was at a local festival 4~5 years ago, where A was dressed in a frilly gothic lolita outfit with ribbons. The mother stood out in her amazing mini-skirt. I once saw A’s room, which was lined with dolls and had the atmosphere of a doll’s house. She seemed like a girl in a box.

When A entered junior high school, her grandmother bought her a bicycle to take her to and from school, and recently her grandmother has been seen taking the bicycle out of storage every morning for her, while A rides to and from school on her bicycle with a helmet on. A relative of both A and her grandmother told us what they were doing just before the incident.

“A’s grandfather often went fishing and gave us fish, so we would bring him vegetables instead. I give A a New Year’s gift every year, so I went to give it to him on New Year’s Day this year, too. My mother told me to thank her properly, and A came to the door and thanked me.”

He said that there seemed to be no problems between mother and daughter.

She said, “Her mother, Y, was usually kind, but when she got angry, she would lose her temper and become agitated. I think she was trying not to let people say, ‘She’s a single mother.  They are pretty well off , and I think she wanted her daughter to wear something as nice as possible.”

The day after the incident, the girl’s grandmother contacted her relatives.

The day after the incident, the girl’s grandmother contacted her relatives, saying, “I’m sorry for worrying you, I can’t even stay at home, so please leave me alone for now.

It was a tragic incident that took place in a small town where everyone knew each other.