<figure id="attachment_466993" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-466993" style="width: 1247px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="780e7dec"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/9799a83fecddf789915524766306b57d.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-466993" class="wp-caption-text">Sanbei in June 2010, shortly after his arrest. At the time, his home was in Ashigara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, where he lived with a woman who lived with him.</figcaption></figure>
<h3><span class="strongInContent"> He asked the woman to film him having sex with her.</span></h3>
<p> This issue of &#8220;After the Incident&#8230;&#8221; follows the story of the incident reported by &#8220;FRIDAY Digital&#8221; up until April of &#8217;26. This time, we report on the &#8220;Ibaraki Woman Confinement and Murder Case,&#8221; in which a 37-year-old man was charged with murder and abandoning a corpse after a woman&#8217;s body was found in a mountain forest in June 2010. (Figures in parentheses are quotes from the article at that time).</p>
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<p> In June 2010, the body of a 23-year-old Tokyo resident, Ms. A, was found in a forest in Hitachiota City, Ibaraki Prefecture. In this case, Hiroyuki Sanpei, 37, was accused of murdering Ms. A in a villa he owned in the same city and dumping her body on a slope in the forest.</p>
<p> This was the second time for him to meet Ms. A. On the day of the shooting, he met Ms. A at Mito Station. He met up with Ms. A at Mito Station that day, but after that day, Ms. A could not be reached.</p>
<p> Immediately after the incident was discovered, &#8220;FRIDAY&#8221; covered the area around the villa where the incident took place. A man who lived nearby said in a bewildered tone, &#8220;I keep a small dog indoors.</p>
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<p><span class="strongInContent"> She kept a small dog indoors, and her husband (Sanpei) used to hold her or take her for walks with the dog. He had built a wooden deck by himself, and I once saw him and his wife drinking tea together at a white table and chairs on the wooden deck. The couple seemed to be getting along well, and I thought they were kind of classy people.&#8221;</span></p>
<p> But on the morning of June 13, the police suddenly arrived.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> &#8220;They pointed to the villa and said, &#8216;There is a possibility that this place could be the scene of an incident, so we need to put up a regulation line. When I looked, about 20 investigators were in front of the villa and started poking around in the yard with long sticks. They also ripped off the wooden deck and poked at the dirt under it. There are about six shovels in front of the villa, and obviously that means something could be buried there, right?　I thought this was unusual.&#8221;</span></p>
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<p> On February 17, 2014, Sanbei&#8217;s first trial was held at the Tokyo District Court, where he denied the indictment and pleaded not guilty, <span class="strongInContent">saying, &#8220;It&#8217;s all a mistake.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> &#8220;It seems that Sanbei and Mr. A met through social networking services. In court, the prosecution pointed out the following, arguing that charges such as murder would apply. He asked a woman to film him having sex with her. The woman was last confirmed to be alive on video taken by Sanpei.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> On the other hand, Sanpei&#8217;s defense said, &#8220;We filmed the woman&#8217;s death while confirming her will. There is no direct evidence that he killed the woman and dumped her body. At the upcoming trial, Sanbei is said to be keeping silent.</span></p>
<p> At the trial, what happened inside the villa gradually became clear.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The verdict handed down to the defendant, Sanpei, was..."></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">The defendant was found to have murdered her.</span></h3>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The defendant, who was a member of the society, was found to have murdered Ms. A. &#8220;During the video recording with Ms. A, the defendant made various demands of her, which were softly refused by Ms. A. Ms. A exchanged messages with an acquaintance on her smartphone, and then stopped responding.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> When the shooting ended shortly after 0:30 p.m., it is said that the last confirmation of Mr. A&#8217;s survival was that he was lying face down naked in the basement of the villa, with his hands cuffed behind his back.</span></p>
<p> The prosecutor claimed that Sanbei had killed Mr. A by compressing his neck inside the villa.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The drive recorder apparently recorded the back cargo door of the car prepared by the defendant Sanbei being raised at around 1:30 p.m. and the nude body of Ms. A being loaded onto the back of the car.</span></p>
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<p> At a sentencing hearing held on February 26, the prosecutor requested a sentence of <span class="strongInContent">20 years in prison for &#8220;</span><span class="strongInContent">extremely brutal, merciless, and vicious acts,&#8221; claiming</span> that the defendant <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;killed and dumped the body based on a strong intent to kill.</span> In response, the defense argued that <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;there should be no false accusation&#8221;</span> because <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;all of the circumstantial evidence submitted by the prosecution, such as the drive recorder footage, is weak evidence for finding that the defendant committed the crime.</span></p>
<p> On March 10, Judge Masataka Nakagawa sentenced Sanpei to <span class="strongInContent">20 years in prison on</span> the grounds that <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;there is no room for reasonable doubt that the defendant killed the victim.</span></p>
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<p> After pleading not guilty at his first trial, <span class="strongInContent">saying, &#8220;It was all a mistake,&#8221;</span> Sanpei remained silent. Therefore, no questions were asked of the accused, and the trial ended without any further discussion of the case. After his arrest, Sanpei remained silent during police questioning, and even four years later, he has not changed his stance.</p>
<p> Sanpei appealed against the verdict of the first trial. What will the high court decide?</p>

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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" [Photo] A tragedy took place in this basement... &quot;The site of a shivering confinement.&quot;"></div>
<figure id="attachment_466994" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-466994" style="width: 863px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b7ba5853"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/85c89b21373c8ad56ee0f117f4d74ba8.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-466994" class="wp-caption-text">At the first trial, he denied the indictment, saying &#8220;It&#8217;s all a mistake,&#8221; and refused to testify thereafter. The defendant was not questioned.</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_466995" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-466995" style="width: 1477px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="28b07c95"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/959c5a3540c0e62ab51de2092b912b1f.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-466995" class="wp-caption-text"> The villa where the defendant was held captive. Until a few years before the incident, the villa had been used as his main residence, where he enjoyed vegetable gardening and barbecues with a woman who lived with him.</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_466996" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-466996" style="width: 1477px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="87b0cf71"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/305346a3749fa320de8c49ca3085099c.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-466996" class="wp-caption-text"> The victim was confined in the basement of the villa. It is believed that she was murdered.</figcaption></figure>


 Nakahira Ryo

 Shinji Hasuo

 This issue of "After the Incident..." follows the "After the Incident" that took place between January and April of this year. This time, we focus on the "Ibaraki Female Imprisonment Murder" case, for which the first trial was held in February. The defendant, who has denied committing the crime since it was discovered, was sentenced.

 After the Incident...] January-April '26 (3)

After the Incident&#8230;Ibaraki Woman&#8217;s Confinement and Murder] &#8220;Video of Naked Body Being Loaded onto Truck&#8221; and Defendant&#8217;s Continued Claim of &#8220;Innocence.&#8221;

After the Incident…Ibaraki Woman’s Confinement and Murder] “Video of Naked Body Being Loaded onto Truck” and Defendant’s Continued Claim of “Innocence.”

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