<figure id="attachment_474560" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 2320px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-474560"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="2c05687e"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/07/15a57edc49a74052d73a9e5a58477c76.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-474560" class="wp-caption-text">The residence and shop belonging to defendant Tanabe, where the incident took place. He had reportedly lived there since his grandfather’s generation (November 2025).</figcaption></figure>
<h3> The live-in woman no one had ever seen</h3>
“I killed someone.”
The man who killed the woman he had been living with reportedly called the police himself and said these words. However, all of the neighbors said in unison, “We had no idea a woman lived in that house,” and appeared unable to hide their shock.
On July 17, the Yokohama District Court handed down its verdict for Hiroshi Tanabe (75), who was charged with commissioned murder. What had Tanabe said during the trial?
The incident occurred on the morning of November 13, 2025.
“On November 13, Kanagawa Police Station arrested restaurant owner Hiroshi Tanabe on suspicion of murder. At around 7:15 a.m. that morning, he allegedly strangled and killed Aoi Shida (29) in the residential portion of his home, which also served as his business premises.
About 30 minutes after the killing, Tanabe himself called 110 and reported, ‘I killed someone.’ He admitted to the allegations, saying, ‘I strangled her. There is no mistake.’ He also reportedly stated, ‘Ms. Shida said she wanted to die.’ Tanabe was later indicted on charges of commissioned murder.” —(National newspaper crime reporter)
Immediately after the incident, a woman living nearby said:
“Around 8 a.m., I heard an incredibly loud siren and looked outside. There were about 10 police cars parked there, and I could also see an ambulance. Before long, a young woman who had been placed on a stretcher was taken away in the ambulance. Mr. Tanabe’s house has only one entrance, which faces the main road. I hadn’t seen any woman entering or leaving the house for about 10 years, so I was shocked when I heard that a woman had been living there.”
What kind of relationship did the deceased Aoi Shida and Tanabe have? According to the opening statements and other court proceedings, their cohabitation began after Tanabe met Shida’s mother around 2005. Regarding Shida’s mother, Tanabe said:
“Hime (referring to her mother) was a drinking companion of mine. She worked at a restaurant, and she didn’t finish work until late at night. Instead of going home, she would stop by my shop, rest in the tatami room, and then return home at dawn to cook meals. Hime told me, ‘If anything ever happens to me, please take care of only Aoi.’”
Her mother died about a year later. Tanabe reportedly discovered her body in the shop’s tatami room early one morning.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="How did they start living together?"></div>
<h3>Shida never left the house even once</h3>
After that, Shida began living with her grandparents, but around August 2018, she suddenly went to the home of defendant Tanabe. Tanabe described what happened when Shida arrived at his house as follows:
“Around the time I was closing the shop, Aoi-san (Shida) came in (to my house) breathing heavily, carrying a bag that looked very heavy. The only thing she said at the time was, ‘Is it okay?’ and I replied, ‘Yes.’ That was the beginning of our eight years of living together.”
For the next eight years, Shida reportedly never stepped outside, spending her days looking at her smartphone or watching DVDs of dramas that Tanabe had rented for her. Her grandparents had tried to persuade her to return home, but Shida never left Tanabe’s house.
In court, Tanabe testified that around November 10, shortly before the incident, he told Shida, “Should we leave this place (this house)?” and that she responded by asking him, “I want you to kill me.”
“She asked me, ‘Please keep strangling my neck for 30 minutes so I don’t come back to life.’ After that, Aoi cut off all of her hair and asked me to ‘throw away’ the hair she had cut off. She also asked me to buy sleeping pills for her. I thought she was truly thinking about dying, and I decided that I would kill Aoi and then kill myself as well.”
On the night of the 12th, Tanabe went with Shida to a nearby convenience store and bought alcohol and other items. It was reportedly the first time in eight years that Shida had gone outside.
“Aoi said, ‘I want to see the view outside,’ so we went to the convenience store together. But Aoi’s physical strength had declined, so on the way back her legs were shaking and she couldn’t walk properly. I supported her, but when we reached the front of the house, her knees suddenly gave out and she couldn’t stand up.”
The following morning, when Tanabe woke up, Shida was still asleep. Thinking, “Is this the time to do it?” Tanabe wrapped a belt in a towel so that it would not leave marks and strangled her to death. He then called emergency services on 110, and police arrived just as he was about to take his own life.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="The “mystery” that remained unsolved until the very end"></div>
<h3>Someone who was always by my side, someone precious</h3>
Why did Shida say “I want you to kill me”? According to defendant Tanabe, during the eight years they lived together, she had never once said “I want to die.”
The prosecutor repeatedly asked, “Why do you think Aoi-san came to want to die?” But Tanabe only responded with answers such as, “Maybe she wanted to become one with her mother,” and “I don’t know.” Tanabe said that one particular remark made by Shida was a major reason he decided to kill her, but he did not reveal what that remark was.
When asked, “Then why did you also think about dying?” he answered, “Because if Aoi-san was going to die, I thought I would die too.”
However, during police questioning immediately after the incident, Tanabe had reportedly made the following statement:
“I had spent around 15 years caring for family members, and I had also spent a considerable amount of money on things like my older brother’s funeral costs two years ago. With the shop’s sales also declining, I began to feel exhausted.”
The prosecutor brought up this statement and questioned him, saying, “Weren’t these also some of the reasons you came to want to die?” Tanabe simply replied, “No.”
However, it was later revealed that Tanabe had visited Shida’s grandparents’ home several times and asked them for money. Although he claimed, “I don’t remember,” the grandparents had consulted the police about the matter. Was financial hardship truly unrelated to the incident?
In his closing argument, the prosecutor criticized the act, saying, “He committed the crime without even asking the victim in detail about her circumstances, making it an impulsive act.” The prosecutor argued that “if an appropriate environment had been provided, it would have been entirely possible to persuade the victim not to die,” and that “when questioned about facts unfavorable to himself, he consistently gave vague answers such as ‘I don’t know.’”The prosecution sought a sentence of five years of imprisonment.
Meanwhile, the defense attorney argued, “When the defendant said, ‘Let’s leave (Tanabe’s house),’ the victim began saying, ‘I will die here.’ She pointed to the place where her mother had died and came to strongly express her desire to become one with her mother. She asked the defendant to ‘help her die.’” Citing Tanabe’s advanced age and other factors, the defense argued that a suspended sentence would be appropriate.
During the trial, Tanabe described Shida as:
“When you spend eight years together, you naturally develop feelings for someone. She wasn’t my child, and she wasn’t my girlfriend. She was simply someone who was always by my side, someone important to me.”
However, he never answered the question the bereaved family most wanted to know:
“Why did Aoi decide she wanted to die?”
Why did defendant Tanabe decide to kill Shida?
With the core question still unanswered, the verdict is scheduled to be handed down on the 17th.
<figure id="attachment_474561" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1202px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-474561"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="a2f64a6d"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/07/cf06a635aad8adf8e747821ca7f04e46.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-474561" class="wp-caption-text">Tanabe was sent to prosecutors on November 14 last year. He walked quietly, gazing into the distance.</figcaption></figure>

 Ryo Nakahira

 Shinji Hasuo

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