Playback ’06] “The Hiratsuka 5-body Incident”: Bodies Rumble from a 1K Room… The Mystery of the “Suspected Mother” Remains to This Day
Arrested for the murder of her daughter.
What did “FRIDAY” report 10, 20, or 30 years ago? In “Playback Friday,” we revisit the topics that were hot at the time. In this issue, we take a look at the May 26, 2006 issue, which was published 20 years ago, and discuss the “Hiratsuka Apartment Incident with Five Bodies: The 54-year mystery of lust for love and money.
On May 1, 2006, a bizarre incident occurred in Hiratsuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture, where five bodies were found in an apartment. Masahiro Sugihara (pseudonym, 35 at the time), the tenant, was found hanged and Mayuka Kurosaki (pseudonym, 19 at the time) was found strangled to death in her futon in a 1K room of about 6 tatami mats. The bodies of an infant and two decomposed newborns were also found in the room.
On May 3, Kanagawa Prefectural Police arrested Tsuneko Kuroiwa (pseudonym, 54 at the time), who lived in the room and had disappeared when the bodies were discovered. Mayuka is Tsuneko’s biological daughter, and Masahiro is her stepdaughter by her common-law husband. Masahiro and Mayuka are half-siblings.
This article looks at the complicated family relationship and Tsuneko’s life behind the case, which is said to remain a mystery to this day. (Descriptions in parentheses are quotations from past articles, and titles are as of the time of the article.)
Tsuneko was arrested on suspicion of murdering Mayuka, her own daughter. However, it would be more unnatural to assume that they lived together in a small room and were not involved in the deaths of the other four. FRIDAY” obtained a photo of her when she was 30 years old. It showed a beautiful woman holding the baby of an acquaintance with a gentle smile. What was it that transformed her into an “evil mother”? The article at the time traced her life story.
Adultery, elopement → No.1 cabaret girl
Tsuneko Tsuneko’s life began in Aomori. At the age of 10, she was discovered by a man who ran an inn on the island of Okushiri. They married and had a son and two daughters. However, at the age of 24, she had an affair with a man she met at a snack bar where she worked, and eloped to Hakodate with only her two daughters. After that, things did not work out with the man, and Tsuneko moved to Kanagawa Prefecture with her two daughters and started working at a cabaret.
A person who knew Tsuneko at that time said, “At that time, cabarets were in their heyday.
At that time, cabarets were in their heyday, and many of the customers were wealthy local business owners. She was a tall, stylish, good-looking woman who looked good in a dress, and was said to be No. 1 in popularity. Moreover, she was very skillful in winning men over. She had a lot of good customers and lived a luxurious life. She was always in a cab and always dressed in foreign-brand clothes.
It was around this time that I met Masahiro’s father, Mr. A. Mr. A runs a soba noodle shop in Hiratsuka City and has a wife who has shared his hardships since he was young. At first, Mr. A kept Tsuneko in an apartment in the neighborhood, but eventually he began to have her work with him at the restaurant. When Tsuneko had a child, he divorced his wife.
The two children born to Mr. A are Mayuka, whose body was found this time, and Mayuka’s older brother Shinichi (pseudonym, 6 years old at the time), who suddenly disappeared in December 1984. Based on the height and teeth pattern, it is highly likely that the toddler’s body discovered this time is that of Shinichi.
At the time of Shinichi’s disappearance, Tsuneko told people around her that “Shinichi was missing when I came home from shopping,” and filed a missing persons report. She even appeared on TV tearfully calling for a search. She appeared on TV tearfully calling for a search. She was a “tragic mother” in every sense of the word. Around 2002, she began claiming that Shinichi had been abducted by North Korea.
After Tsuneko came to the soba shop as a second wife, the business rapidly declined. Around that time, Tsuneko began to borrow money from those around her, lying that her daughter had cancer and she needed money.’ In February of 2005, Tsuneko was chased out of the room she was living in with Mayuka, her two daughters with her former husband, and their daughter after she failed to pay the 74,000 yen rent 25 times. She and Mayuka then moved into Masahiro’s apartment, which was the scene of the crime.
Masahiro is believed to have committed suicide, and a suicide note found in his room stated, “I wanted to be with Mayuka. Why did Masahiro die, why was Mayuka killed, and why did Shinichi die? And who are the parents of the two newborn bodies?
Even after Tsuneko’s arrest, many mysteries remained in the case.
She pleaded not guilty at trial.
Subsequent investigation revealed that Mayuka had no eyewitness testimony after October 12, ’05, and it was assumed that she was murdered around this time. When an acquaintance of Mayuka’s e-mailed her at the time of her supposed death, she replied that she had been hospitalized, and it was believed that Tsuneko was working on a cover story.
As for Masahiro, he was found to have committed suicide around March ’06 because there was a suicide note. The infant body was identified as that of Shinichi, and the two newborn bodies were also found to be Tsuneko’s children. It appears that the child was a child that she and Mr. A had before Shinichi was born. However, Tsuneko was never charged with any crime in connection with the three bodies due to the statute of limitations at the time, which was 15 years for murder and 3 years for abandonment of the bodies.
In the trial held at the Yokohama District Court from August ’06, the prosecution stated as the motive for the murder, “From around September last year, the defendant began to dislike Mayuka’s going out and going to prep schools and circle activities. He began to interfere with Mayuka’s going out and studying by brandishing a knife and taking a string with him, and decided to kill her.
Tsuneko denied the indictment for Mayuko’s murder, claiming that Masahiro was the real murderer. Meanwhile, she repeatedly refused to testify more than 70 times when questioned by the judge and prosecutors, and never touched on the core of the case.
On July 23, 2007, Tsuneko was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The verdict stated , “It was unnatural for Tsuneko to leave Mayuka’s body for such a long period of time and to pretend to those around her that she was still alive. The crime was cold-blooded, and Tsuneko showed no affection for Mayuka as a mother. Masahiro had no motive to kill Mayuka.
Tsuneko appealed, but the case was dismissed and her sentence was later finalized. In the end, however, Tsuneko never told the truth. The motive for Mayuka’s murder and the circumstances leading to Masahiro’s death have not been revealed, and the deaths of Shinichi and the others remain a mystery.
In October ’20, former porn star Kuuga Iijima (27 at the time), who is Tsuneko’s grandson (daughter of the second daughter), told YouTube’s “Machiroku ch” that Tsuneko had already been released from prison and was living on welfare.
According to Kuga, who lived with Tsuneko before she moved into Masahiro’s apartment, Tsuneko in her memory “was a kind grandmother.
