IBARAKI (TR) – Police in Koga City have arrested a 49-year-old woman on suspicion of sewing her housemate’s lips shut, a shocking crime that has shed light on a bizarre communal living situation, reports TV Asahi (July 7).
Masae Sakurai, a self-described part-time worker, was sent to prosecutors on Tuesday. She is accused of using a needle and thread to stitch together the upper and lower lips of a 42-year-old woman at their shared residence in the Morokawa area of Koga City on June 29.
According to police, the victim managed to escape the following day while Sakurai was away from the house.
Emaciated and wearing a surgical mask, the woman fled to a shop about 170 meters away. Unable to open her mouth, she placed a small scrap of paper on the counter. The handwritten note read: “Please help me. I cannot speak, so please make a phone call. Please call the police.”
The shop owner, who did not realize the woman’s lips had been stitched together beneath the mask, immediately contacted authorities. An ambulance arrived and transported the victim to a hospital.
Her injuries are not life-threatening. She later told investigators, “I was too scared of Sakurai to run away.”
“Nobody knows what they did for a living”
The investigation has since exposed eerie details about the residence, where the suspect and victim had been living together since April of last year.
Sakurai reportedly moved into the previously vacant property about a year ago but refused to interact with the local neighborhood association. Locals soon began noticing disturbing sights.
About a month prior to the arrest, neighbors witnessed a woman crouching outside the house overnight in the pouring rain, wearing only a t-shirt and shorts without an umbrella. It remains unclear if this woman was the victim.
Witnesses also described a strange communal living arrangement at the property.
“There were a lot of people there. Seven or eight men and women were constantly coming and going,” one neighbor said. “Nobody knows what they did for a living.”
Others reported seeing bicycles belonging to high schoolers parked outside and hearing strange noises echoing from the home, describing it as sounding like teenagers practicing boxing on a sandbag.
Police are continuing to investigate the motives behind the assault and the exact nature of the relationship between the residents of the home.
