15-year-old girl arrested for abandoning mother's body in Okinawa home

Saturday 21st February, 05:49 AM JST

NAHA —

Police arrested a 15-year-old female high school student early Saturday on suspicion of abandoning her mother’s body in Okinawa Prefecture, investigative sources said. The girl is believed to have left the body of her mother, 46, in a closet at their home in the village of Kitanakagusuku, Okinawa, according to the sources. The mother is believed to have been strangled by a cord.

Police on Friday found the girl who had been missing since her mother’s body was found in a closet in their home on Tuesday. The girl was found with an adult male in his 20s in a hotel in Okinawa City, police said.

According to police, the mother was found dead inside the closet by her 45-year-old husband on Tuesday. The husband told police his wife and daughter had been missing since telling him they were going to a relative’s house on Jan 27. But the two never showed up.

Police said the family lives in the same house but have been virtually separated and have not seen each other for years, because the first and second floors of the house were blocked off to prevent interaction. The father lives with his 78-year-old dad on the first floor, while the mother and daughter live on the second floor. They enter the house via the window and the front door respectively, police have learned.

The daughter transferred to her current high school on December but has been absent since Jan 26.

News reports

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Latest 15 of 44 Total Comments Show All

timeon at 12:07 PM JST - 21st February

the update on the story sounds familiar: girl was arrested. let's see what happens next: accused of strangling her mother, she or the boyfriend?
m0l0 at 01:05 PM JST - 21st February

sad to hear about this and it sounds like another fracture in an already fractured family.
BBLeo at 01:27 PM JST - 21st February

Is 15-year-old capable to strangle her mother? I'm sure that there is something behind this issue and time will tell.
MeanRingo at 04:20 PM JST - 21st February

Love it... abandoning a body. Sounds very serious!
Midnightpromise at 05:34 PM JST - 21st February

If this was the story line for a movie it would be rejected as too weird.
likeitis at 05:55 PM JST - 21st February

Is 15-year-old capable to strangle her mother?

I think a lot of people actually would think this is a valid question. It is amazing to think that probably everyone here was 15 once, given all they have forgotten about being 15.

When I was 15 I passing for an adult and buying beer and whisky at the local liquor store. Girls in general were just as physically matured as myself and considerably more mentally matured. So yeah, a 15 year old girl is capable of quite a lot.
as_the_crow_flies at 07:25 PM JST - 21st February

At leas the family agreed enough to let the upstairs lot use the door. Imagine if the 78-year old dad had been expected to climb in and out of a second floor window...

What is it with abandonment of bodies in Japan? Has anyone ever heard of a crime called abandoning a body anywhere else? Where does the idea that abandoning a body is a bad thing to do come from? I'm intrigued. On a different tack, if the girl had been in the house when the police caught up with her, that wouldn't have been abandonment, right? Surely the correct word when a cupboard or a refrigerator or something like that is used is stored, isn't it?
ThonTaddeo at 06:14 AM JST - 22nd February

As The Crow Flies, "abandonment of a body" is the crime that they charge people with at the very beginning so that they have many heavier options open should they need more time for questioning/torture and then choose to re-arrest them. Everybody knows that this charge is just the first of several which can be used consecutively, leading up to the "real" one.
the_sicilian at 01:34 PM JST - 22nd February

On the local news, the girl stated to police she came home and found the mother's body. She panicked and hid it. Then left with the made up story about being at a relatives house.

Also, the hotel was a "love hotel". There were pictures of the "no one under 18 sign", along with the individual parking stalls.

This just doesn't smell right, and I live in Kitanakagusuku. this is a very peaceful town. The last crime here was about 2 years ago where someone's house was robbed a few doors down from where I live. They caught the perp, but still it makes me want to keep an extra eye out for people that don't belong.

Ciao
likeitis at 01:57 PM JST - 22nd February

Needless to say, even if the "older guy" the daughter was hanging out with turns out to be related to any particular group SAVE ONE, there won't be any mass protests against that group. Not even if it turns out he killed the mom too! There is a fat double standard down in Okinawa. Yeah, man.
sharky1 at 10:10 PM JST - 22nd February

Where is the outcry from the Okinawa City mayor about the heinous crimes committed by Japanese citizens? Where are her rants about how Japanese need to learn to behave like human beings?
grafton at 10:32 PM JST - 22nd February

asthecrow_flies at 07:25 PM JST - 21st February

“What is it with abandonment of bodies in Japan?”

It’s just an holding charge, it by passes any legal rights the person being questioned might have (might have) & if the police feel the need they can hold that person on that charge alone giving them more time to think of more interesting charges they can persuade the body abandoner to admit to.
dennis0bauer at 12:39 PM JST - 23rd February

She left her mother in the closet , i wonder if she did it.

And this time not in saitama
the_sicilian at 03:42 PM JST - 23rd February

I think there was a tiff between the mother and daughter. Speculation, mind you. Just couldn't handle the anger.

Ciao
forensicmommy at 10:33 PM JST - 27th February

15 year-olds can do a lot although you have to wait for the facts in this case to form a sound judgement. In the states, we just had an 11 year-old commit premeditated murder by shooting is father's pregnant girlfriend and hopping on a bus to school as if it was a regular day. He is being charged as an adult because PA doesn't have a law to charge juveniles for murder. In Maryland, a 12 year-old killed his mother and little brother with a metal instrument by beating them both to death. Sounds unbelievable but the laws have not caught up with the changing times. These kids know how to form intent, plan a crime and carry it out. Don't know about this young lady but maybe she was influenced by her grown man boyfriend. Maybe she influenced him. Sad case all the way around.