Fukuoka man arrested for leaving dead wife’s body in apartment

Monday 26th October, 12:00 PM JST

FUKUOKA —

A 26-year-old woman was found dead in her Fukuoka City apartment on Sunday after her husband turned himself in at a police station earlier in the day, police said Monday.

Tatsuya Hirade, an unemployed 27-year-old man and co-resident of the apartment in Fukuoka City, went to a police station in Nagoya City early Sunday morning, accompanied by a friend he used to work with at a host club in Nagoya City. Hirade told officers that his wife was dead and her body was in their Fukuoka apartment.

Officers in Fukuoka were notified and rushed to the apartment, where the woman was found dead, lying face-up on the bed. A preliminary autopsy carried out later Sunday revealed the woman had been dead for about a month, but was unable to determine the cause of death.

Hirade was arrested for illegally abandoning a corpse, and he has admitted to the allegation, telling police he left the apartment on Oct 12. He was quoted as saying: “She died in late September. She wasn’t well before that and I asked her if she wanted to go to hospital but she said she didn’t need to go.”

Hirade didn’t notify a hospital nor the police immediately after his wife’s death, and police are continuing their investigation with domestic violence a possible cause of her death.

Police said the woman’s parents called them in June saying her daughter was suffering from domestic violence, but when police called the woman, she said she wasn’t, and that she didn’t want officers to come to the apartment. Police then told her to call if anything happened but there were no calls from the woman, police said.

Wire reports

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Latest 15 of 22 Total Comments Show All

GW at 02:45 PM JST - 26th October

I dont want to say its accepted but its kinda along that line of thinking, perhaps tolerated is a better way to describe it
bamboohat at 02:53 PM JST - 26th October

Police then told her to call if anything happened but there were no calls from the woman, police said

While this sounds completely absurd, there really isn't much they can do, if the victim is unwilling to come forward. Of course, coming forward in a society where DV is tolerated as borderline normal can make things exceedingly difficult for the victims.
kokorocloud at 03:29 PM JST - 26th October

I think it's hard for victims even when it isn't tolerated. In the states for example there are still way too many DV cases that go unreported simply because the victim was/is too afraid of the abuser. That sounds like what might have happened in this case. She probably would have called for help, but that might have made things worse.
kyolicious at 04:13 PM JST - 26th October

Dishdash- Earlier this year there was a survey that found 1 in 3 Japanese wives had suffered physical or mental abuse, with a significant number reporting that they had feared for their lives. You can probably find it if you google it. (It was reported a lot in overseas media.) I don't know how that compares to other countries, but it's still bad in any case.
dolphingirl at 06:01 PM JST - 26th October

It took this guy almost a month to report that his wife was dead. If he wasn't guilty of anything, surely he would have called the police/ambulance right away. The fact that he waited so long to do anything suggests that either foulplay was involved or he is mentally ill or both.
hakujinsensei at 08:08 PM JST - 26th October

dishdash, the term 'wife beater' wasn't coined in Japan. After being her for quite a while, I doubt that DV is more prevalent here than in the US or Mexico, the only other countries that I lived in. I would say that there is a distinct possibility that violence perpetrated by women is higher here however. Either

beyond that... how could a guy stand a dead body in his house for so long... very weird, very sad...
Osakadaz at 08:19 PM JST - 26th October

interesting to see how this trial is presented in light of the Oshio case.
Monoflow at 08:50 PM JST - 26th October

A lot of wired cases lately in Fukuoka... Compare to it's size, it must be the top town in Japan about crimes, I assume...
IvanCoughalot at 09:05 PM JST - 26th October

I know a bloke whose wife threw a cup of hot coffee at him and then clawed his face and neck with her nails because he asked her to check a tax bill for him. The next day she was chairing a parents' meeting at their kid's kindergarten. Domestic violence is very, very prevalent here - and it isn't a one way street.
bokudayo at 11:03 PM JST - 26th October

Hirade was arrested for illegally abandoning a corpse

He didn't abandon his wife's corpse. He kept her (it?) tucked in bed at home!
mnemosyne23 at 11:06 PM JST - 26th October

what a strange and unnerving story. A month with a dead body in the bedroom? What? Didn't any of the neighbors notice the putrid smell of a decaying body? It probably sounds crude, but when my family had a dead mouse in the wall in our basement, the smell was incredible and hung around for MONTHS. We're talking about a full grown person in this case -- the smell should have been astronomical!

(shaking head) I don't get it. Is this a growing trend or something? Keeping a dead body in the home for weeks at a time before it gets discovered and/or confessed? It seems like there's a new story about someone living with the corpse of a dead mother, child, wife, husband, brother, sister, etc, just about every week. I know this is JT, and so the stories are culled from all over, and news by its very nature tends to focus on the strange and sensational, but still - I don't get it.

Also, I'm just looking for some clarification here -- why did the police CALL this woman? I understand that the possibility of domestic violence was raised by the wife's mother, not a neighbor or what have you, but shouldn't that still merit a knock on the door and a quick face-to-face check? If you're going to use the staff time to give her a call, why not have a black-and-white stop by during their usual rounds. "We had a report of a disturbance in the area, ma'am, may we ask you a few questions?" And then steer the conversation away from the faux disturbance onto the woman's home life. It's a bit extensive and some might say overboard, but I'd really rather the police spend their time protecting the health and well-being of the citizenry than stopping gaijin in the street to check their passports, or calling out the helicopters to chase a couple of purse snatchers after a hit and run.
mnemosyne23 at 11:17 PM JST - 26th October

PS -- Also, ditto IvanCoughalot's point that domestic violence is a two-way street. Women and children might be the most visible victims, but many men deal with physical, emotional and psychological abuse as well, and are even LESS likely to come forward. As with all domestic violence, this is hardly a Japan-only problem: it's worldwide. The most common tropism in the average Western sitcom is the goofy, doughy husband with the clever wife who puts up with his stupid behavior and antics because, "He's a guy, and guys are dumb like that." Reverse those roles and make the woman the dumb one: "She's a woman, and women are dumb like that." It strikes at the chord of feminism in even the most conservative individual. But do we feel that way when the EXACT SAME MESSAGE is conveyed about men? No. We just accept it because it's something "everybody knows."

If a man hits his wife, he'll rightfully be labeled an abuser and face the ridicule he deserves. But if a woman punches her husband, we sort of laugh it off. "Dumb guy," we think. "He got hit by a GIRL." And that's wrong.

(climbs down of soapbox) Okay, back to the regular discussion. What the heck is with people anymore?
SBBarnes at 01:59 AM JST - 27th October

Bizarre. But you know, if she had been beaten to death the signs would be pretty obvious.

Some people have very fragile constitutions and doctors can't seem to do much about it. I have run into several women here who complain of being extremely lethargic and requiring hospitalization often. But no clear explanation from the doctors they say. It would not be too wild for the parents to think the problem was actually DV, and it matches the husband's claim that she was not well beforehand.
Yelnats at 12:22 PM JST - 27th October

DV in Japan? No...kidding right? Maybe that is why instinctively barricade myself in my bedroom every night.
bdiego at 03:27 AM JST - 28th October

Exactly, the woman denied DV and refused the police to come over. There is absolutely nothing the police can do. Otherwise it would be the easiest way to harass any woman - just tell the police her husband is beating her and they'll kick down the doors and arrest the husband now matter how hard they both deny it.

I'm subject to psychological abuse from my wife. Big deal, it's called being married. I'd say 99% of married couples have that 1 way or the other. Now DV on the other hand, that crosses the line and certainly none of the people I've known are okay with it. I know one friend getting divorced over it, and all of her friends thought she should get divorced when they heard about it.

Prevalent does not equal accepted/tolerated. Rape and crack is prevalent in many countries, and it's still not okay.