OSAKA (TR) – One case in the trial of a former hospital nurse accused of raping 10 girls left at home alone at an apartment complex in the prefecture over a six-year period started at the Osaka District Court last week.
At the court on January 14, Tomoya Yanagimoto, a 28-year-old resident of Suita City, admitted to allegations of rape resulting in injury and trespassing regarding one of the victims, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Jan. 14).
“I am very sorry for causing so much trouble and mental distress to the victims with my selfish actions,” Yanagimoto said.
The defense stated that the defendant will also admit to all of the allegations in the remaining cases as well.
In the case heard on January 14, the crime allegedly committed by the defendant took place in March 2016. According to the prosecution’s opening statement, the defendant, who was a university student at the time, broke into the home of an elementary school girl. Disguised as an electrician, he followed her inside after she entered.
He then threatened her. “If you don’t shut up, I’ll kill you,” he threatened. When the victim cried and resisted, he sexually assaulted and injured her. He also took photos and told her to keep quiet. “If you say even one word about the crime, I’ll show it to your friends,” he said.
Before committing the crime, the defendant had been checking the times the girl and her family left and returned home for about a month and a half. He recorded notes on his smartphone and waited for an opportunity to commit the crime.
After the crime, he told the girl, “I’ll always be watching you.” A statement from the girl’s mother in which she expressed her anguish was read out in court. “The perpetrator had not been arrested for many years. Those words have been weighing on me ever since.”
A statement from the girl was also read. “I endured it mindlessly, wondering when it would end. I blamed myself for not opening the front door at that time, and after the assault I was even scared of my father.”
According to the indictment, the other crimes committed by the defendant were similar. They took place from 2016 until July 2022.

Blindfolded the two of them
Yanagimoto was arrested in 2022. In May of that year, he carried out a crime involving two other girls.
“The ambush took place in the common area of the apartment complex. Just after [one victim] opened the front door with a key and entered the residence, [the defendant] pushed her in from behind and entered the room,” an investigator tells the site for Shukan Josei.
He blindfolded the two of them, stripped them naked and then committed obscene acts, such as taking pictures of their naked bodies.
The police began investigating the case after receiving a report from the girl’s family. However, it was not easy to identify the suspect.
“That’s because he chose to move around in places where security cameras would not pick him up,” the aforementioned investigator says. “When we looked at the images around the crime scene, none of them captured the suspect’s exact figure. We carefully reviewed the images carefully, capturing a shadow that quickly crossed one corner of the image, and traced it from that point to the next point, drawing a line to the place where the suspect was clearly visible. It appears that he chose a route close to a blind spot.”
The suspect was identified because the girls remembered his features.
“They hadn’t forgotten what they saw before they were blindfolded,” the investigator continues. “For example, he had a light blue shirt and bag. We were able to identify the suspect based on that memory,” says the investigator.
The verdict for the first case is expected to be handed down on February 18.