48-Year-Old Man Hijacks Taxi Naked and Commits 20 Crimes in 90 Minutes

A male instructor in his 50s called out to a man who had broken into a cram school in Soka City, Saitama Prefecture, completely naked. The man silently struck the instructor on the head with a nearby mug, causing an injury that required 10 stitches. He then reportedly began shouting incoherent words, grabbed a female junior high school student, and pulled her by the arm.

At around 9:40 p.m. on April 22, police officers from the Saitama Prefectural Police, responding to an emergency call, arrested Daisuke Nishimura (48), an unemployed suspect, on the spot inside the cram school on suspicion of unlawful entry into a building. Nishimura is believed to have committed about 20 incidents over the course of roughly an hour and a half before his arrest.

“The first emergency call came in just after 8:10 p.m. that evening. In Kawaguchi City, someone reported to police that a tattooed man is slowly driving through a residential area, acting suspiciously. After that, a car believed to be driven by Nishimura collided with two motorcycles in succession. A male company employee in his 40s riding one of the motorcycles died from the impact.

Nishimura then repeatedly rammed his car into a vehicle driven by a woman in her 40s in Kawaguchi City. He dragged her out of the driver’s seat and fled in her car. A few minutes later, he threatened a taxi driver, saying ‘I’ll kill you,’ and stole a taxi carrying a man and a woman in their 40s and 50s. At a convenience store he entered, he stole daily goods without paying. The last place he broke into was the cram school in Soka City. During all this, Nishimura is said to have remained completely naked,” said a reporter from a national newspaper’s social affairs department.

“You shouldn’t say that.”

 In the series of incidents, the number of injured, including the motorcyclist who died, reached over a dozen. Among them was a victim who, while watching TV in their apartment, had a concrete block thrown in from outside.

“Nishimura’s actions were completely unhinged. He jumped naked onto a car hood, drove a taxi at a top speed of 107 km/h. It’s said there were over a dozen students in the cram school he broke into. The children must have felt sheer terror when faced with a naked man shouting incomprehensible words and rampaging. According to police, when questioned about his motive, Nishimura reportedly said things like, ‘You shouldn’t say that,’” said the same reporter.

A photographer from this magazine captured Nishimura’s transfer to prosecutors on April 23. Intimidating tattoos covered his arms and neck. He glared at the press and behaved bizarrely, shouting something toward the investigators from inside the police van.

Taihei Ogawa, a former Kanagawa Prefectural Police detective and crime journalist, commented:

“I saw the footage — the investigators on either side of Nishimura didn’t react and kept facing forward. Nishimura was probably talking to himself. At times, he even cracked a smile. It’s baffling behavior.

He just happened to crash into a motorbike ahead of him, dragged the driver out, and stole the car all while naked. It doesn’t seem like a premeditated crime. He should be tested for illegal drug use. When encountering someone so clearly deranged, you must never think about taking out your smartphone to film them. It’s extremely dangerous — there’s a real risk of being attacked. You need to be extremely careful not to provoke them.”

The police believe Nishimura was involved in about 20 incidents and are investigating the details.