[Daylight Terror] Woman Attacks Male Relative With a Chainsaw in a Crime Straight Out of a Horror Movie

Attempting to kill a man with a chainsaw

Just after 8 a.m. on August 4, a small, fair-skinned woman appeared before the media gathered at the Kanuma Police Station of the Tochigi Prefectural Police. Her hair, tied back in a single ponytail, was brown at the ends. Furrowing her brow, she stared at the cameras with her large eyes as if she had something to say. After glaring silently for several seconds, she eventually lowered her gaze and got into the vehicle transporting her away.

“I’ve been slashed with a chainsaw.”

It was the kind of emergency call that made one doubt their ears. The call to 110 came on the afternoon of August 2.

Police officers rushed to a parking lot in Utsunomiya, where they arrested Nozomi Nagata (36), an unemployed woman with no fixed address, on suspicion of attempted murder. She is accused of trying to kill a male relative in his 60s with a small chainsaw.

“At around 3 p.m., as the man approached his car in the parking lot to retrieve some belongings, Nagata suddenly appeared carrying a chainsaw and allegedly thrust the spinning blade into the right side of his abdomen from the front. It is believed that Nagata had been lying in wait for him.

The man suffered injuries to his arm and abdomen but his life was not in danger. He subdued Nagata himself and called the police. He said he had no idea why he had been attacked and that the assault had come out of nowhere, while Nagata has stated, ‘I don’t want to talk.’”

On the day of the incident, Utsunomiya was holding its annual Furusato Miya Festival. The incident, which occurred in the midst of the major festival that attracts hundreds of thousands of people over the two-day weekend, appears to have shocked local residents as well.

“I happened to be passing by the scene, and there were seven police cars and maybe around 15 officers, including plainclothes police. At first, I thought it might be some kind of fight related to the festival, but then I heard that a woman had been swinging a chainsaw around, and I was shocked. I didn’t see any bloodstains or anything like that in the parking lot, but the whole scene was extremely hectic,” said a man who lives nearby.

According to some reports, Nagata lived near the scene and was known for causing trouble while intoxicated. Police cars had reportedly come to her apartment on occasion. The man who was attacked is said to be her father.

Is a chainsaw difficult to use as a weapon?

The incident—reminiscent of the horror film “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974), in which someone attacked another person with a chainsaw—sent shockwaves through the public. According to a writer familiar with the case, chainsaws are sometimes used to dismember bodies, but cases in which they are used as murder weapons are rare.

“In August 2023, a woman in her 20s was charged with attempted murder after allegedly trying to kill her sleeping boyfriend by pressing the blade of a chainsaw against his neck. She was convicted last year. The woman had grown resentful after the man told her he wanted to break up and purchased a chainsaw online. Before attacking him, she reportedly even made test cuts on frozen meat and tree branches.

When asked why she chose a chainsaw as a weapon, she stated that because she lacked physical strength, she believed a machine was more suitable than strangling someone or using a knife.”

However, cases such as this one, in which someone goes so far as to purchase a chainsaw specifically to use as a weapon, appear to be extremely rare.

“In a 2015 case in Aomori Prefecture in which a man in his 60s killed his older brother in his 70s, the older brother reportedly first brought out a chainsaw during an argument between the siblings. However, the younger brother took it away from him and killed him with a hatchet. A chainsaw can also be dangerous to the person using it, depending on how it is handled, and it is probably difficult to maneuver. Another reason may be that chainsaws are not commonly found in ordinary households,” the same source said.

Incidentally, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” whose monster Leatherface helped popularize the image of chainsaw equals murder by wielding the tool, is said to have been inspired by the bizarre crimes of Ed Gein in 20th-century America.

In reality, however, Ed Gein did not go around wielding a chainsaw. While chainsaws have become an iconic symbol in fiction, their use in real-life murder cases is extremely rare. Why did Nagata choose a chainsaw as her weapon? Further developments in the investigation are awaited.