Yumiko came back one time,” Kobe 6-year-old murdered and left for dead: “The mother, who was locked up, returned to the scene of the crime…”

The reason why there have been no further reports on the case is probably due to the prolonged detention for psychiatric evaluation. The evaluation began in August 2011 and is scheduled to be completed in February 2012. Even though all four arrested siblings are being evaluated, this is an exceptionally long time.

A media reporter in Osaka said of the Kobe 6-year-old child murder and abandonment case that occurred in June 2011. The suitcase containing the body of Osamu (Nao) Hosaka, who was 6 years old at the time, was found in a grassy area in Kobe’s Nishi Ward, and Osamu’s grandmother, Yumiko Hosaka, then 57, was confined to an apartment room and beaten.

Arrested on suspicion of confinement and assault were Shu’s mother and Yumiko’s eldest daughter, Saki Hosaka (then 34), her second son, Daichi (then 32), and twins, Tomomi and Asaka (then 30). The main suspect is believed to be Daichi, and the police are investigating whether the other suspects had the ability to make decisions because of the sibling relationship.

When we visited the apartment where he was confined, about six months after his arrest, one of the residents agreed to be interviewed.

Yumiko came home once around October. She seemed to have been away since the incident, and this is the first time she came back here. At that time, she was just cleaning up her house, and Yumiko had already moved out of the apartment.

What does the mother, who had her grandchildren killed and her own children locked up, think about now?

From the January 5 and 12, 2024 issue of FRIDAY