TOKYO (TR) – On Thursday, Kotomi Sato hid her face from cameras in the backseat of a police vehicle. The day before, she was arrested after stabbing her boyfriend in the neck with scissors inside his luxury apartment in Nakano Ward. He later died at a hospital
According to police, the pair began dating earlier this year. Fuji News Network (Sep. 17) provides background on how the incident transpired.
The crime occurred inside a newly built luxury tower apartment building near JR Nakano Station. The victim, aged in his 20s, was a certified public accountant.
The incident was revealed after Sato called emergency servicse just before 7:00 p.m. on Monday. She said that she she had stabbed her boyfriend in the neck with the scissors.
Emergency personnel arriving at the scene found the man collapsed and bleeding from his neck inside the residence. He was later confirmed dead at a hospital, police said.
“Hood over her head”
Upon her arrest on suspicion of attempted murder, Sato partially denied the allegations. “There was an argument going on between us on the train and it continued when we got to the apartment,” she said. “I thought he would listen if I took out the scissors. So, I swung them at him and stabbed him.”
Police later changed the charges to murder.
A man who witnessed the scene outside the building said, “The woman was surrounded by four or five police officers and had put a hood over her head. She didn’t fight back. They just put her in a police car and took her away.”
The victim was taken to an ambulance. “The paramedics were administering cardiac massage to him inside the ambulance,” the aforementioned man said.
“We often fought over small things”
According to investigators, Sato and the victim got into the aforementioned argument inside the train for some reason before the incident. When they returned to the apartment, the argument didn’t die down and escalated into a scuffle.
It is believed that Sato then took a pair of scissors from a drawer in the TV rack in the victim’s apartment and stabbed him in the neck. The murder weapon had blades measuring up to 20 centimeters in length, police said.
The pair began in March 2024 after the victim confessed his feelings for her.
Sato told police, “We often fought over small things. Sometimes I would slap or hit him.”
The reason for the argument has not yet been made clear.