Asuka Uchida.
"I always thought she was Mrs. Abe."
Author: Liu Xiao
At the end of 2023, a bizarre murder occurred in Nagoya, Japan. A month after the disappearance of a local second-hand luxury businessman, his body was found in his closet, badly decomposed.
Soon, the police announced that the suspect in the case, 29-year-old store clerk Asuka Uchida, was detained on suspicion of abandoning the body. However, due to the lack of evidence from the police, Uchida could not be formally arrested for a while.
As time passed, the police still failed to produce evidence, which attracted the attention of the Japanese national media: This young and beautiful woman really committed such a heinous act? And what is she doing it for? It was only recently that the horrific truth finally emerged.
Abe is dead
Koichi Abe.
The deceased's name was Koichi Abe, 42 years old, who was running a thriving second-hand luxury goods business in a commercial building in downtown Nagoya. Other shopkeepers in the same building recalled that Abe was very conscientious and had not hired a clerk before, and he would carefully inspect the shop every day before closing.
A second-hand luxury store run by the deceased, located in the "Ozawa Building" in Naka-ku, Nagoya.
A colleague recalled: "Everyone in our circle knows that Abe is a calm person, he doesn't show anything about his favorite things and women, and he usually dresses casually. ”
Advertising banner placed in the elevator hall of the building "High price acquisition".
Abe and his sister have a good relationship, although they are both over 40 years old, and the sister is far away in their hometown in Iwate Prefecture, the sister and brother still talk to each other frequently. However, since the end of September 2023, the siblings have relied on text messages to keep in touch, and the younger brother has never answered the phone.
I couldn't hear my brother's voice, and my sister felt that something was wrong. On November 20, my sister came to Nagoya to call the police - my brother had lost contact. On November 21, the police came to Abe's residence. It is an upscale apartment located in Shineicho, Naka-ku, Nagoya, not far from Abe's second-hand luxury store. When the police arrived at Abe's house, they found the bedroom door sealed with duct tape and several bottles of deodorant on the door.
The police found Abe's bedroom door sealed with duct tape.
When I opened the door, I was greeted by a foul smell. The police found a body wrapped in a blanket in the closet: the deceased was naked, with his hands tied, a plastic bag on his head, a rope wrapped around his neck, and no obvious external injuries. Judging by the degree of decomposition of the body, it has been dead for many days.
After forensic identification, the deceased was none other than Koichi Abe. According to the results of the judicial autopsy, Abe has been dead for a month and a half to two months, "from the end of September to the end of November 2023". Apparently, someone has been faking the illusion that Abe is still alive.
On November 22, the police went to Abe's store to check, and the store owner next to him said that more than a month ago, Abe's store posted a notice saying that the owner was hospitalized due to illness and that it was temporarily closed. On the 24th, the police detained the clerk Uchida on suspicion of abandoning the body, but found no real evidence.
In the course of further investigation, the police found Mr. A, a regular customer at Abe's shop. He said, "I pawned 15 million yen (about 690,000 yuan) worth of gold bars to the store, and I originally planned to get the money two days later." Mr. A also said, "I have seen Uchida 3 times in the store. For the first time, she gave people a sense of generosity. One last time, she told me that Abe was depressed and wouldn't come back to the store. Thinking about this sentence now, it's scary! ”
15 million yen is not a small amount, Uchida squeezed toothpaste and gave money: the first time he gave 1.5 million yen (about 69,000 yuan), and the second time, Uchida asked Mr. A to wait in front of a nearby convenience store, and gave another 1.5 million yen. Whenever Mr. A asked why Abe didn't come to hand over in person, Uchida first said that Abe had the flu, and then said that he had the flu and complications of the new coronavirus.
Mr. A felt troublesome and planned to go directly to Abe, but Uchida hurriedly said, "Abe has just been discharged from the hospital, and now his sister and other relatives are also here, and you will disturb them when you come to the door." ”
Abe's situation is not only strange to customers, but also strange to a shopkeeper in a building: "From the end of September 2023, Abe's store has been closed, and a handwritten notice is posted on the door that reads 'If you are not feeling well, you will be temporarily closed'. At that time, my first reaction was that Abe was okay, right? Unexpectedly, Abe was already dead at that time. ”
Uchida
Abe's death originated from an encounter 8 years ago. Uchida was originally a nightclub escort and left the nightclub because he was about to get married. However, she soon returned to the nightclub in the name of "experience" and met Abe, the "Diamond King's Old Five".
As the relationship between the two became close, Uchida asked Abe for money every now and then, and the amount was quite a lot. Abe asked how she spent the money, and Uchida always said that she had sent it back to her hometown to her mother. After a long time, Abe also had some doubts. At one point, he asked, "Where did your mother spend all that money?" Uchida replied, "I donated it to one of her religions." ”
In order to dispel Abe's suspicions, Uchida answered "Mother's phone call" in front of Abe when he was drinking with him. This trick seemed to work, and over the course of a few years, Abe gave Uchida a lot of money. The relationship between the two became closer and closer, and in 2014, Abe simply asked Uchida to work in his shop, and Uchida also had the aura of a boss lady. According to the memories of other customers, "When I first entered the store, I thought of Uchida as the store manager. ”
But Uchida only uses Abe as an ATM and doesn't want to marry him. In 2016, Uchida found a husband and gave birth to a daughter, but the marriage lasted for 3 years and then broke up, and the custody of the child was given to her ex-husband.
After the incident, the police blocked Abe's apartment balcony.
Abe bought a new high-end apartment, Uchida still frequents and belongs, neighbors recalled, "I always met that lady in the elevator, and I always took the initiative to say hello, which was very polite, and I always thought she was Mrs. Abe." ”
However, after all these years of dating, Abe has also seen the essence of Uchida. He was busy opening the shop, and gradually became a lot colder to Uchida. The proprietress didn't take it, and Uchida's opening to ask for money was not as smooth as before. So, Uchida began to steal money from the store.
Of course, the attentive Abe found out about this, scolded Uchida for being a "liar and thief", and complained to the people around him: Uchida stole tens of millions of yen in cash. Because of this incident, he had a showdown with Uchida, and Uchida could only return the money little by little.
The two have reached this point, and the "wonderful" Abe has not even severed relations with Uchida, maintaining a state of continuous severance, and sometimes letting Uchida spend the night at home. Eventually, his lust killed him.
Deadly midnight
Uchida's rented apartment.
Uchida lives in a small apartment on the side of the viaduct, with low rent and a lot of noise.
Uchida, who is seen by his neighbors, is often dressed up in a fancy way. After the incident, the neighbor recalled: "The doors and windows of her apartment are always closed, and people rarely touch her. Later, she found that a handsome man was in and out of the apartment with her. ”
Naoki Koyama.
That "handsome guy" is not an ordinary "handsome guy", but a "cowherd" who accompanies wine in a nightclub, named Naoji Koyama. Uchida was a regular customer of the store, and Koyama wanted to be the "top brand" of the store and wanted customers to buy more alcohol. In order to help Koyama, Uchida constantly steals money from Abe's store and goes to Koyama's store to spend. Some Japanese media wrote: "It's just a 'cowherd maniac'." ”
Shortly before Abe's death, there had been four burglaries in his second-hand luxury store. The building's security system is very tight, and the possibility of external intrusion is unlikely, and the police judged that "the possibility of internal ghosts committing crimes is extremely high". However, because some areas of the store were not monitored, thieves who were familiar with the environment took advantage of the loopholes.
Upon investigation, the police found that the thefts had all occurred after Uchida had been hired. The police retrieved the call records of the landline in the store and found that on several occasions, someone answered the phone after the store was closed, "it was a female voice". Police are investigating evidence of Uchida's alleged theft.
Koyama became the number one brand in the store, and his appetite grew, but Uchida's financial path became narrower and narrower. So the two discussed: Or, just get rid of Abe?
On the day of the crime, Uchida offered to go on a date with Abe. Abe, who is sober-minded in business and is easy to get dizzy when he sees a beautiful woman, readily agreed. After the two made out in the apartment, Uchida took advantage of Abe's defenselessness and strangled Abe's neck. Abe lost his life in a daze.
Uchida, who killed someone, also panicked when he looked at the corpse, and called Koyama. When Xiaoshan arrived at the scene, he didn't know what to do with the body. High-end apartments are all monitored, and if you want to remove the body, you will be photographed as soon as you leave the room, let alone take the elevator. If you take the stairs, the speed is slow, and it will be photographed by the surveillance on each floor, leaving more evidence.
The two of them went soft just thinking about it. In a panic, the two rolled up the naked Abe with a blanket, wrapped his head in a plastic bag, and then wrapped it repeatedly with wide tape and stuffed it into the wardrobe.
In order to prevent the decomposing corpse from smelling, they used several bottles of deodorant and sealed the crack in the bedroom door with duct tape. Uchida rummaged through the cabinets, took all the cash he could find, and took Abe's cell phone, and finally locked the door.
The two slipped out of the apartment and began a life of nearly two months with a ghost in their hearts. The police said, "After Abe's death, Uchida repeatedly invaded Abe's store and stole a total of 800,000 yen (about 36,900 yuan) in cash and a total of 74 million yen (about 3.42 million yuan) worth of precious jewelry."
In February 2024, after collecting conclusive evidence, the police formally arrested Uchida. The Nagoya District Court opened Uchida's trial on suspicion of intentional homicide. Xiaoshan is also on trial on suspicion of assisting in the hiding of the body. But he denied it.
Back to the scene at the beginning of this article. At that time, the police found the body hidden in the closet, as well as several 10,000 yen bills scattered on the floor — which may have been dropped by Uchida and Koyama as they fled in panic. These banknotes are clear evidence of human greed, cruelty and ignorance.
Director: Zhang Pei
Editor: Ling Yun
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