Mother dead in the closet; 15-year old daughter arrested

Posted By Dave on February 23rd, 2009

An update to this story was requested, and I’m happy to oblige. Over the weekend a little more information came out in regards to this rather bizarre story I posted up here on Friday. I initially wrote “a few more facts” although in light of the information I decided that maybe “facts” wasn’t such an appropriate word. Here is some of the story I found, with my commentary to follow:

The husband and father, Morihiro Gushiken, says he last heard from his wife on January 11th, when she sent him an email from his daughter’s cell phone telling him “I am going to visit a relative with our daughter”.

After a few days, a worried Gushiken telephoned the relative, only to learn his wife and daughter were not there. He then reported the two missing on January 27th. Although Gushiken lived apart from his wife, he tended to the woman’s cat, and on February 17th the 45-year-old Gushiken entered the wife’s home and discovered a foul odor. Moments later, he tracked the smell to a decomposing body in a closet.

The body was so decomposed, police say, that Gushiken did not recognize it as being his wife. Identification was made by DNA. Police intensified the search for the still-missing daughter, finally tracking her down at a hotel in Hiyane District of Okinawa City, where she was living with a man in his 20’s. Interviews with the teenager turned up inconsistencies and contradictions in stories, with the girl first telling police he’d told her friends “my mother died in a car accident in the middle of January.”

The girl changed her story with police, saying “she strangled herself and I found her dead.” Asked why she ran away and began cohabiting with an older man instead of reporting her mother’s death, she said “I found my mother dead in the room, but I didn’t know what to do, so I just put the body inside the closet.”

Police say their investigation is continuing, and that they still believe the girl knows more than she’s admitting. The young man, meanwhile, is being investigating for having relations with an underage girl.

So police believe the girl knows more than she’s admitting. They really are sharp as a dart here in Okinawa! Don’t think it takes someone with a Masters in criminal psychology to deduce that. So we’ve got the mother who died in a car accident in January, but then who strangles herself about a week later and died yet again. Daughter found her dead mother and wondered if she should call the ambulance or police. Thinking that her mother had already been resurrected once from this car accident, she decided the closet would be the best place for her to regain her strength and come back to life naturally. I’m no Colombo, but somehow the story doesn’t seem completely watertight.

Am a little surprised they said the body was so decomposed they couldn’t recognize it. I can imagine some decomposition, but it was only around 3 weeks later and the temperature isn’t so high in Okinawa yet to cause that much decomposition. Admittedly, I am basing my knowledge on watching CSI Miami which probably isn’t the most effective way of learning about times and causes of death. Possibly more efficient than the methods Okinawan police use, but still not great.

So we still don’t know who this mystery guy is the girl was living with when police found her, but I had to laugh when they story said he was being investigated for having relations with an underage girl. It’s like the police are saying, “We’ve got to get one charge out of this, surely!”. I really hope more information on this will come to light, namely who this guy is and what actually happened to the mother. If I find more I will keep you updated.

Tags: bizarre news, crazy stories, crime, japanese news, okinawan news

UFC Japan 2013, and a Look Back at Ronda Rousey’s UFC 157 Win