“I want him to carry the cross”… Fukuoka Stabbing Case: “Victim’s Mother’s Angry Confession to the Juvenile Offender and His Family”
Six years after the incident, the mother whose 21-year-old daughter was brutally murdered while simply out shopping at a commercial facility crowded with summer vacationers spoke to me in an interview.
“I want not only the perpetrator but also his mother to understand the suffering of the bereaved family and make them bear the burden of this guilt. If they try to run away, I intend to pursue them, even if it costs me my own money.”
The incident occurred on August 28, 2020, in the middle of summer during the COVID-19 crisis. Yari Yoshimatsu (21 at the time) was brutally stabbed to death with a kitchen knife in the women’s restroom of “MARK IS Fukuoka Momochi” in Fukuoka.
The suspect arrested was Juvenile A (then 15), who had been provisionally released from a juvenile detention center just two days earlier.He had been wandering the streets because he “wanted to have sex.” He happened to notice Yari, followed her to the women’s restroom, and threatened her with a kitchen knife he had shoplifted along the way. When things didn’t go as planned, he stabbed her with the knife, taking her life.
At trial, the juvenile was sentenced to an indeterminate prison term of 10 to 15 years for murder and other charges. Approximately four years later, in March 2026, the Fukuoka High Court handed down a ruling on a claim for damages filed by the bereaved family.The court ordered not only Juvenile A but also his mother, B, who had abused him, to jointly pay approximately 54 million yen. It was a groundbreaking ruling that recognized the responsibility of the mother, even though she was not the direct perpetrator.
Yasato’s mother, Ms. C, says:
“Ever since the incident occurred, I have been in indescribable agony. Juvenile A repeatedly insulted my daughter during the trial, and his mother, B-ko, also behaved in a mocking manner toward me. I will never forget this, and I want to get even. That is what I mean by ‘making them bear the cross.’”
After the incident, I met with the juvenile offender and wrote a report that was published in *FRIDAY* and *FRIDAY Digital*. This time, I would like to recount the events leading up to the verdict from the perspective of the victim’s mother.
“Let’s turn ourselves in.”
Ms. C has almost no memory of the day the incident occurred.
Her daughter, Yuri, left home saying she was going shopping with a female friend, only to be suddenly murdered. After being summoned by the police and informed of the incident, she identified Yuri’s body, but she could not accept the sudden tragedy as reality.
Afterward, the incident was widely reported, and a large number of media outlets surrounded her home. Ms. C had to flee in panic without even having the time to come to terms with what had happened.
It wasn’t until after the funeral that she was finally able to face the facts. A friend from her elementary and junior high school days came to pay her respects and said through tears,
“I wish I had been the one by Yuri’s side when it happened. If it had been me, I would have jumped in to save her when she was attacked…”
When the incident occurred, the security guard prioritized evacuating people over rescuing Yari, and her friend had also left the scene to seek help.
To Ms. C, Yari was essentially the beloved daughter she had raised single-handedly. Yari was cheerful and energetic, the kind of person everyone liked. She also knew her mother had struggled more than most, so she was a thoughtful child who, ever since her days in daycare, had written essays expressing her gratitude to her mother time and time again.
Although she lived with her parents and worked part-time, around the time she turned 20, she began saying she wanted to become a full-time employee and expressed a desire to study. She was likely thinking seriously about her future and wanted to secure a stable environment for herself.
It was just then that the incident occurred.
When she was attacked in the women’s restroom, Yari let her friend escape and tried to reason with Boy A as he lunged at her. Even as she was covered in blood from the knife being swung at her repeatedly, she pleaded with him.
“Doing this won’t solve anything. You should turn yourself in.”
But Boy A brutally slit Yari’s throat and killed her.
After the incident, very little information about Boy A reached Ms. C. It consisted of only fragments, such as that he had been shuttled between various facilities since childhood, or that he committed the crime just two days after being temporarily released from a juvenile detention center.
Around this time, Ms. C was suffering from trauma-induced insomnia and nightmares almost every night. As soon as she got into bed and closed her eyes, she would see Yari being attacked by the boy. Yari desperately tried to reason with Boy A, but the kitchen knife came down on her without mercy.In his mind, C pleaded with Boy A over and over to stop. But Boy A paid no heed, and with the knife, he sliced through Yari’s white neck. Yari died and went limp…
After the incident, the mother began seeing a psychiatrist and was prescribed sleeping pills. Yet, whenever she closed her eyes, the scene of the murder would inevitably flash before her.
How much pain must her daughter have felt? How terrified must she have been? How much must she have suffered? Thinking of these things, she apologized to Yari in her heart over and over for not being able to save her.
What Ms. C wanted was to uncover the reason her daughter had been killed. She hired a lawyer and decided to conduct her own independent investigation into every aspect of the case—not only regarding Boy A, but also to determine if there had been any negligence in the handling of the incident.
“I don’t have any money.”
It was a little while after the incident that I heard from B-ko, Juvenile A’s mother. Through my lawyer, she conveyed that she wanted to apologize.
She likely hoped that by apologizing before the trial, she could gain even a slight advantage in the proceedings. Although I wasn’t keen on it, I decided to meet with her once to hear her side of the story.
That day, B-ko appeared at the victim’s attorney’s office accompanied by the boy’s lawyer.
Mr. C had assumed that B-ko would come to apologize for the incident on her son’s behalf, bowing her head in deep contrition. However, to Mr. C, it seemed as though B-ko was offering only a superficial, perfunctory apology—and even appeared to be smiling. What she said was hard to believe.
She claimed she didn’t know why her son had killed Ms. Yari, that she hadn’t discussed the incident with any of her relatives, and that she didn’t really know her son well since he had been raised in a facility… As for compensation, she stated the following with absolute certainty:
“We don’t have any money.”
She was telling me she had no intention of paying compensation.
As I would later learn, B-ko was employed at the time; she had divorced Boy A’s father and was living with another man.
Even if her savings were meager, the normal thing to do would be to scrape together as much money as possible to show good faith, hand it over, and then bow her head to ask for an installment plan. But B-ko was completely lacking in that kind of common sense.
Ms. C could no longer contain herself and said,
“With your son having committed such a crime, I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
B remained silent.
“What on earth have you been laughing at this whole time?”
To Ms. C, it looked as though B was wearing a defiant expression. A chill ran down her spine as she thought, This woman is out of her mind.
“You’re a hypocrite, aren’t you?”
It was during the juvenile court hearing that Ms. C saw Boy A, the boy who had killed Yari. But there, she found herself thrown off balance by the boy’s words and actions. Since he was 15 at the time of the crime, the proceedings were held behind closed doors in family court.
When Boy A appeared in court, he was smaller and thinner than she had imagined. A thought crossed her mind: Could this boy really have killed her daughter? But when she heard the words Boy A spoke during the juvenile hearing, she was stunned.Not only did he never once attempt to offer an apology, but he also shamelessly fired off a barrage of insults directed at Yari.
What on earth was he thinking?
A little while later, driven by a desire to understand his true intentions, Mr. C used the “Emotional Communication System”—which allows the victim’s feelings to be conveyed to the perpetrator—to ask him several questions. Once again, the responses from Boy A were utterly unacceptable.
Ms. C : “What were you thinking when you pointed the knife at my daughter, and when you stabbed her?”
Boy A : “People die so easily, don’t they?”
Ms . C : “What did you think when your daughter fought back?”
Boy A : “She’s a hypocrite.”
Ms. C: “Please explain what you mean by ‘I’m sorry.’”
Boy A : “I’m sorry.”
Mr. C : “Do you have any intention of compensating the victim?”
Boy A : “I have no obligation to pay.”
Was he just playing the bad guy, or was that his true feelings? If it was the latter, what was going on inside this boy’s head? Including the fact that Girl B seemed to be flashing an eerie smile, everything was beyond comprehension.
The timeline shifts slightly here, but Mr. C gradually began to understand the reason. Through the criminal trial that followed the referral to adult court and media reports, the “darkness in Boy A’s heart” was revealed.
In response to this, Ms. C’s solution was to “make him bear the cross.” I will write about the details of this in [Part 2].
Reporting and Text： Kota Ishii (Nonfiction Writer) PHOTO： Courtesy of the bereaved family, Kyodo News, and others