The Stalker Who Stabbed His Ex-Girlfriend Blaming the Crime to the Victim

The background of the horrific incident is about to be revealed in court.

On February 8, the Fukuoka District Court indicted a former boyfriend of Terauchi for murder and violation of the Firearms Control Law for stabbing a female office worker to death. The man, Susumu Terauchi, 31, a restaurant worker, allegedly stabbed Miki Kawano, then 38, repeatedly in the chest and other parts with a 24-cm blade shortly after 6 p.m. on January 16, killing her.

Terauchi had been pestering Ms. Kawano to get back together with him. Despite being told that the relationship was over, he continued to stalk her. She told her friends that she loved her too much to leave her, and she resented his refusal to get back together with her, so she stabbed and killed Ms. Kawano.

On the other hand, there was an opinion within the prosecution that it was necessary to confirm whether or not Terauchi was criminally responsible for his unusual behavior of stabbing her in more than a dozen places, including her face and chest. However, since there were no inconsistencies in his statements and he fled the scene of the crime after realizing the seriousness of the crime, it seems that the court concluded that he was criminally responsible.

FRIDAY Digital reported the incident in detail on January 21. We would like to look back on the tragic trouble again (some parts of the article have been corrected).

I admire Namie Amuro

Why did you call the police? You’ll lose your job!

The man was so enraged that he stormed into his ex-girlfriend’s workplace and yelled at her, “You’re going to lose your job!”

On the evening of January 16, Ms. Kawano was stabbed to death on a street in front of JR Hakata Station. She had dozens of stab wounds, and the cause of death was blood loss. Terauchi, a former boyfriend of Ms. Kawano, was arrested on suspicion of murder.

Terauchi apparently ambushed Ms. Kawano near her place of work. Security cameras caught them walking toward Hakata Station, holding umbrellas. While they were walking and talking, they got into an argument. Terauchi pulled Ms. Kawano down, mounted her, and repeatedly and persistently stabbed her with a knife. After the crime, he returned to his apartment, changed out of his bloodstained clothes, and disappeared.

He was taken into custody by the Fukuoka Prefectural Police two days later on the 18th. A “spotting investigator,” who finds a specific person among the crowd, found Terauchi disguised in glasses and a mask in Nakasu, a downtown area about 1.5 km away from the crime scene. He was in possession of a knife, but he was willing to go along with the investigator and admitted the crime, saying, ‘I’m sure I stabbed her.

Terauchi was born in Fukushima Ward, Osaka City. After dropping out of high school, he worked at restaurants in Roppongi, Tokyo and Minami, Osaka before moving to Fukuoka about a year ago. He began working part-time at a bar in Nakasu in April of last year. One of the bar’s regular customers was Mr. Kawano.

She once lived in Okinawa in her late teens and was a student at the “Actors School,” which produced Namie Amuro, a former member of “SPEED,” and others. She was in the same grade as Eriko Imai, a former member of “SPEED” and a member of the House of Councilors, and she admired Ms. Amuro.

She came to Fukuoka about 10 years ago. She was married, but after her divorce, she raised her daughter as a single mother. She lives with her parents and her beloved daughter. She met Terauchi at a bar she frequented, and they began dating around last spring.

However, from the beginning of their relationship, defendant Terauchi was very restrained.

“Terauchi seems to be a jealous person. He always suspected Ms. Kawano of cheating on him and had her use a smartphone application that showed her location. He also took her smartphone away from her, which caused the relationship to deteriorate, and we hear that Ms. Kawano told him she was breaking up with him last fall. Ms. Kawano told people around her that she was afraid of him because he was too restrictive,” said another reporter from a national newspaper.

Even after the dissolution of the relationship, Terauchi persistently followed Ms. Kawano around. In October of last year, Ms. Kawano consulted the police, asking for a warning, and in November Terauchi began to appear at her workplace, prompting the police to issue an emergency ban under the Stalking Control Law.

In response to the police warning, Terauchi told the police that he would not approach her anymore, but she was not convinced. After that, he persistently contacted Ms. Kawano. When the relationship was ended, the suspect’s resentment grew, and he is believed to have committed this crime.

According to the National Police Agency, the number of emergency restraining orders issued to Terauchi jumped from 173 in 2016 to 1,671 in 2021. The number of stalker consultations reached 20,000 cases. Ms. Kawano lost her life due to the recrimination of Terauchi. She would have celebrated her 39th birthday on January 18, the day Terauchi was arrested.

After his arrest, Terauchi told him that “the other party was at fault, too,” and did not offer any apologies.