<figure id="attachment_463209" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-463209" style="width: 3198px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3cef5576"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/04/2566d70c1d27ebbd43a035e5c37718ae.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-463209" class="wp-caption-text">He was 37 years old and unemployed at the time of his arrest. He was not the type to show emotion (from April 1, &#8217;16 issue).</figcaption></figure>
<h3><span class="strongInContent"> The culprit was a man who lived in the neighborhood.</span></h3>
<p> What did &#8220;FRIDAY&#8221; report 10, 20, or 30 years ago? In &#8220;Playback Friday,&#8221; we revisit topics that were popular at the time. This time, we will focus on the April 1, 2004 issue, which was published 10 years ago and featured the <span class="strongInContent">story of an &#8220;unemployed man&#8217;s twisted sexual desire&#8221; who stalked and murdered a 25-year-old theater troupe member</span>.</p>
<p> In August 2003, a female theater troupe member, K. (25), who lived alone in an apartment in Nakano Ward, was brutally murdered, and on March 12, 2004, the Metropolitan Police Department arrested Kosuke Takayama (pseudonym, 37), an unemployed man who was living at his parents&#8217; house in Fukushima Prefecture. What happened between the two men, who had never met each other before?</p>
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<p> The arrest was the result of the police&#8217;s persistence.&#8217; In an article in the April 1, 2004 issue, a reporter from the social affairs section of a national newspaper testified about the investigation as follows.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> 《&#8221;From late February, there was talk that &#8216;the Nakano case might be ready to go. In addition to skin fragments found under the victim&#8217;s fingernails, saliva has been detected on her mouth and chest, and DNA matching has been conducted on more than 1,000 neighbors, including those who moved out after the incident. Among them, a suspect who lived about 300 meters away from the crime scene at the time of the incident also surfaced, and we decided to arrest him after his DNA type was matched.&#8221;</span></p>
<p> Takayama initially stated that he did <span class="strongInContent">not know the victim at all</span>. However, the day after his arrest, he changed his mind and admitted to the crime.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> &#8220;Takayama followed Ms. K. on her way home and snuck into her apartment. When he asked her to exchange LINE IDs, she was startled and ran away, so he entered her room. When she resisted, he strangled her with his hands and then strangled her with a string that was in the room,&#8221; said an investigator.</span></p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" What kind of man was he?"></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">Before the incident, he quit his job and moved back to his parents&#8217; home.</span></h3>
<p> Takayama was born into a wealthy family in Fukushima Prefecture, where his grandfather ran an accounting firm. He was a quiet child and did not stand out. Although he excelled in high school, he failed the university entrance exam. He moved to Tokyo to become a certified tax accountant, but failed. He worked at various jobs in Tokyo, including a karaoke bar and garbage collection, and until just before the incident, he was working as a sales representative for a real estate brokerage firm. In the article, a friend described how the suspect Takayama was at that time.</p>
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<p><span class="strongInContent"> 《&#8221;I was worried about my poor sales performance. He often said, &#8216;I can&#8217;t remember the faces of my customers. He was paid on a piece-rate basis, ranging from a few tens of thousands to 180,000 yen per month. He said he ate only cup noodles to save money. Three months before the incident, he had quit his job; he had a girlfriend whom he had been dating for three or four years and said they were going to get married and help his father-in-law with his work. He said he was running a wide range of businesses, including food and beverage and subcontracting for TV program production.</span></p>
<p> However, it seems that Takayama, who returned to his parents&#8217; home, had neither a &#8220;girlfriend to marry&#8221; nor a &#8220;job he was supposed to help out with.&#8221; A junior high school classmate, whom we met at a local gathering in January of 2004, said of him at that time <span class="strongInContent">, 《&#8221;There was nothing unusual about him, he was just drinking normally.</span> On <span class="strongInContent">his way home, he asked everyone for a job, saying, &#8216;I want you to introduce me to a job.</span></p>
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<p> He moved to Tokyo from Miyagi Prefecture. K., who dreamed of becoming an actress and joined a theater troupe, was beginning to gain popularity for her cuteness and honest personality, and Takayama, who had given up on life in Tokyo and returned to his parents&#8217; home in Fukushima. The two had never met, but their lives happened to intersect in the worst possible way, leading to tragedy.</p>
<p> The circumstances that led Takayama to commit the crime will be revealed in the subsequent trial.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" I have the devil in me. I have to defeat it quickly."></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">Defendant claimed it was &#8220;the devil&#8217;s voice.&#8221;</span></h3>
<p> Takayama&#8217;s trial for the murder of Ms. K. and other charges was held for the first time on February 16, 2006. At his arraignment, Takayama admitted that he had murdered Ms. K., but he also claimed <span class="strongInContent">that he</span> heard a phantom voice <span class="strongInContent">, saying, &#8220;The devil is in my head.</span> He denied that he committed the murder for the purpose of indecent assault, claiming that it was because he heard an auditory hallucination, saying, &#8220;I <span class="strongInContent">have</span> a demon in my <span class="strongInContent">head, and I have to defeat it as soon as possible.</span> The trial focused on whether the motive for the murder was obscenity and the &#8220;demonic voice.</p>
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<p> Takayama had been dating a woman for many years. On August 23, the day before the incident, Takayama had returned to his parents&#8217; home, and on August 24, he arrived in Tokyo with 60,000 yen from his parents in exchange for moving his belongings out of his apartment. However, &#8220;I&#8217;m in Nishikawaguchi. I&#8217;m in Nishi-Kawaguchi. I want to see you.&#8221; He texted her several times, but she did not take him up on his offer, so he got desperate and went to a delicatessen in Nishi-Kawaguchi. Then, in the evening, as planned, he headed for Nakano, where he used to live, to sort out his apartment. The incident occurred that night.</p>
<p> The defense claims that Takayama saw Ms. K by chance in the middle of the night and <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;wanted to talk to her as one of his friends before returning to his hometown to make a connection with Tokyo</span>, The prosecution, on the other hand, claimed that Mr. K. went home and followed him to his apartment, and that he followed the voice of the devil.</p>
<p> The prosecution, on the other hand, claimed that Takayama entered the apartment for the purpose of indecent assault a short time after Ms. K came home. This was based on the fact that after Ms. K came home, her boyfriend had marked his line as read when he sent it to her, as well as on the testimony of a resident downstairs.</p>
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<p> In the March 7 ruling, the presiding judge found the time of the crime to be a few minutes after Ms. K came home, based on the credibility of the resident&#8217;s testimony and other evidence. He also ruled that Takayama&#8217;s &#8220;auditory hallucinations&#8221; <span class="strongInContent">did not exist,</span> based on the testimony of a psychiatrist. The judge <span class="strongInContent">stated, &#8220;The victim had dreams and hopes of becoming an actor, but at the age of 25, his life was cut short in an unreasonable manner.</span> I <span class="strongInContent">can only imagine his regret.&#8221;</span> The judge sentenced Takayama to life imprisonment.</p>
<p> On April 15, 2007, the Supreme Court rejected Takayama&#8217;s appeal, and his sentence became final.</p>

<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" [Image] Mr. K, who had halfway to his dream but... died a regretful death."></div>
<figure id="attachment_463514" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-463514" style="width: 1280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="59e7b0f5"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/04/f82654723b50e9fa7b43d535cd897865.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-463514" class="wp-caption-text">Mr. K&#8217;s apartment where the body was found (from the September 18, &#8217;15 issue)</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_463255" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-463255" style="width: 1276px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="71be1fc3"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/04/61bf8294583ed992efff254a25f83bd1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-463255" class="wp-caption-text"> Mr. K&#8217;s apartment building when the body was found. The body was lying just inside the front door (from the September 18, 2003 issue).</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_463212" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-463212" style="width: 1280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="2c3c9213"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/04/ee642e7e7fca81345e5163f6d60e45b7.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-463212" class="wp-caption-text"> Mr. K is in the foreground of the photo, wearing a w-piece. He said he loved to drink (from the September 18, &#8217;15 issue).</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_463213" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-463213" style="width: 1280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="019caba2"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/04/d8b66d2ec48cc2ed2dc8198fadec1d88.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-463213" class="wp-caption-text"> A photo of Mr. K uploaded on the theater company&#8217;s website at the time. He enjoyed haiku and tanka poetry (from the September 18, 2003 issue).</figcaption></figure>


 Shinji Hasuo

 Playback '16" looks back at what this magazine reported 10, 20, and 30 years ago. In March 2004, the murderer of a 25-year-old female theater troupe member who was murdered in an apartment in Nakano Ward, Tokyo, was arrested. What is the "connection" between the murderer and the victim?

Playback &#8217;16] &#8220;Nakano Theatre Company Member Murdered&#8221;: The &#8220;Connection&#8221; Between a 37-Year-Old Unemployed Man and a 25-Year-Old Victim Who Was Full of Hope.

Playback ’16] “Nakano Theatre Company Member Murdered”: The “Connection” Between a 37-Year-Old Unemployed Man and a 25-Year-Old Victim Who Was Full of Hope.

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