Headless body in Hokkaido hotel: Couple over-doted on daughter and covered up her crime, trial shows
TOKYO: The bizarre relationship of a Japanese couple with their emotionally unstable daughter surfaced this week during the start of a trial involving the headless corpse of an elderly man, found inside a room at a hotel in Hokkaido, Japan, in 2023.

Appearing before a court on June 4, Hiroko Tamura, 61, recounted having come across a man’s head one day inside the bathroom of the home she shared with her 60-year-old husband, Osamu, and 30-year-old daughter, Runa, in Sapporo city.

The head belonged to Hitoshi Ura, 62, whose headless corpse was found in July 2023 inside a room at Hotel Let’s in Sapporo’s Susukino entertainment district.

Later investigations led to the arrest of Runa, who was said to have stabbed Ura.

Her doctor father, Osamu, was also arrested for purportedly helping her sever Ura’s head in an attempt to cover up the crime.

Probers revealed that a saw was used to decapitate Ura, and that the man’s head was smuggled out of the hotel room inside a suitcase.

Runa’s mother, Hiroko, was arrested for supposedly helping in the cover-up.

iroko told the court on June 4 that when she saw Ura’s head inside the bathroom, she found it “so out of the ordinary”, reported Japanese media.

“I couldn’t tell my daughter it was good or bad, and I couldn’t condemn or accept it,” she said.

She also testified that she was asked to take photos of the severed head, “but I didn’t know what of, and I didn’t comply”.

Police sleuthing and court records painted a picture of a couple who over-doted on a daughter suffering from bouts of unchecked mental illness.

Hiroko’s and Osamu’s world revolved around Runa, prosecutors said.

Their tiny home was filled with things they bought for their daughter.

They called her “ojosan” – meaning “young lady” or “miss” – while she, in turn, called her father “Mr Driver” and her mother simply as “kanojo”, or “she”.

They bought whatever things or food Runa wanted, and they made plans according to whatever they thought would make their daughter happy.

They were always wary of Runa’s wild mood swings, and Osamu always asked Hiroko to keep a tab on whatever Runa was doing.

They never scolded her.

It was, prosecutors said, a “Runa-first” family dynamic.

The family’s defence lawyers leaned on Runa’s deteriorating mental health in seeking to justify her actions.

“When she became mentally unstable, Runa would yell unintelligible words as if she were going mad, punch holes in the walls of their home, commit self-harm, and attempt suicide,” one of the lawyers said in an opening statement.

Not knowing any better, the lawyer said, Hiroko and Osamu “tried to meet (their daughter’s) desires within the scope of what was possible”.

“In this way, they ended up with a parent-child relationship that was very peculiar,” he said. - The Straits Times/ANN
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TOKYO: The bizarre relationship of a Japanese couple with their emotionally unstable daughter surfaced this week during the start of a trial involving the headless corpse of an elderly man, found inside a room at a hotel in Hokkaido, Japan, in 2023.