Daughter of 9 medical school waifs dismembers her mother…! The “reality” depicted by the author in the popular book, “The Curse of the Mother, the Prison of the Daughter

In March 2006, parts of the body of a 58-year-old woman were found on the banks of the old Yasu River in Moriyama City, Shiga Prefecture, with her hands, feet, and head severed. 3 months later, police arrested her daughter, Akari Takasaki (pseudonym, 31 at the time), on suspicion of abandoning the body, and in September of the same year, she was arrested again on suspicion of murder. In the subsequent trial, Akari denied killing her mother until the first trial, but at the second trial, she admitted that she had killed her mother with her own hands.

Akari’s daughter Akari had a history of being a ronin for nine years in order to pass the entrance exam for university medical school. Her mother, who died, dominated her from an early age. She constantly monitored Akari while she was a ronin and beat her with an iron pipe when her grades did not improve as expected. Shortly after 3:00 a.m. after killing her mother, Akari took to Twitter and wrote, “I beat the monster. I’m relieved now.” It is known that Akari posted on Twitter, “I beat the monster.

Although this story sounds like something out of a novel, this is an actual incident. A nonfiction book titled “Haha denjuubaku: Daughter den jogoku” (Kodansha), which meticulously describes the process of contacting the perpetrator and leading up to the incident, has received a huge response and is currently in its seventh printing with 50,000 copies in print.

The author, Aya Saito, wrote the book at the age of 27 after leaving Kyodo News after working as a reporter in charge of justice in the company’s social affairs department. After its publication, the book was praised for its meticulous coverage of the inner life of the daughter who killed her mother, but it was also criticized for “only depicting the daughter’s side of the story” and “this is not non-fiction. Saito says that he was prepared for such criticism, but still dared to write the book by staying close to Akari, the daughter who dismembered and killed her mother. What did he want to convey by depicting the story from the daughter’s point of view? We interviewed Mr. Saito.

-We heard that you first came in contact with Akari Takasaki when you were working as a judicial reporter for Kyodo News, and that you received a great response when you posted an article on the Internet after eight visits and correspondence with her. Did you have any intention of writing a book about this case when you first started covering it?

No, I had no idea. As a reporter covering various incidents, I always try to contact the people involved, including the perpetrators. However, it was rare for me to actually meet them, and this was the first time for me to exchange so many letters directly with them. When I interviewed Akari and wrote a digital article of about 5,000 words and uploaded it, the response was quite positive, so I was satisfied with that. Then, I received an offer from an editor to publish the article as a book, and I decided to give it a try. From there, about 90 I decided to give it a try because I had to.

-What kind of person did Akari seem to you?

I wanted to avoid preconceived notions, such as, “She is a murderer, so she must be like this,” so there were no gaps in my expectations. During the interview, I had sent him questions in advance, and he spoke clearly and without hesitation about what he had prepared. I strongly felt that Mr. Saito is a person who is quite connected to the people we usually come in contact with.