A solution over 17 years… 45-Year-Old Inmate Admits Involvement in Stabbing Death of 2 Girls in Kakogawa Elementary School and Neighbors’ Regret”

A rapid development over the past 17 years

In October 2007, someone murdered Yuzuki Unose, then 7, in Befu-cho, Kakogawa City, Hyogo Prefecture. It has been revealed that a man, 45, who is currently serving a prison sentence for the murder of another girl, has admitted his involvement in Yuzuki’s murder.

Yuzuki was stabbed in the chest and abdomen by someone while riding her bicycle home in Beppu Town at around 6 p.m. on the day of the incident. The police had been investigating the case for more than 15 years, but had not been able to identify a suspect due to a lack of eyewitness testimony and physical evidence. The man who hinted at his involvement was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2011 for the murder of a third-grade girl (9 at the time) with a knife in Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture, in September 2004.

Three years earlier, in mid-December 2009, a Friday reporter had visited Beppu Town. After Yuzuki’s incident, streetlights were added to the street, making it much brighter at night, and the living environment was greatly improved. Yuzuki’s house, which had remained unchanged for some time after the incident, was demolished and replaced with an apartment, and her family had left the town.

At the time of the incident, the vice president of the neighborhood association was the person who served as the point of contact with the mass media and police, who flooded the town. At the time of the incident in 2009, the vice president’s wife told the Friday reporter the following story.

The vice president continued to hope that the perpetrators would be apprehended.

My husband passed away in March of ’20. I had been concerned about the case for a long time, so I was constantly responding to all the newspaper and TV interviews that came in throughout the day. He also cooperated with police investigators who asked, ‘Have you seen a car of this color?’ and he also cooperated with police investigations and strengthened patrols in the neighborhood association.

We sincerely hoped that the culprits would be apprehended. As time went by, the number of visits by the police decreased, and in the last few years they have not come once. My husband said right up to the time of his death, ‘I’m sorry about that incident.

It has been about four years since the death of the vice president, who continued to wish for the arrest of the murderer until the very end. The case, which seemed to have gone cold, took a sudden turn.

As the Hyogo Prefectural Police proceeded with their investigation, suspicion surfaced that a man serving time in prison for the Tsuyama incident was involved. When the prefectural police interviewed the man voluntarily, he made a statement admitting his involvement. The investigation is now in its final stages, and the police plan to arrest the man on suspicion of attempted murder as soon as they are able to establish the charges,” said a reporter from the society section of a national newspaper.

We hope that the persistent investigation by the prefectural police will help the bereaved family and the vice president of the association to move on from this tragedy.