49-year-old woman arrested after alleged lip‑sewing incident
Masae Sakurai, 49, was taken into custody on Monday on suspicion of injuring a 42‑year‑old woman by sewing her lips shut with a needle and thread.
The victim, a 42‑year‑old woman who had been living with Sakurai since around April 2025, was allegedly sewn shut at Sakurai’s residence in Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture, about an hour north of Tokyo, according to reports from Chinese media and other outlets. Some accounts place the incident in Tokyo; the New York Post reported the location as Tokyo.
The incident occurred on 29 June at about 1:30 p.m., as reported by the South China Morning Post. After the act, the victim escaped by running to a nearby store and presented a handwritten note that read “help me,” according to a report on Bluesky.
Police said the victim’s life was not in danger and did not disclose the extent of her injuries, according to Mothership.sg.
Sakurai was arrested on Monday on suspicion of the alleged assault.
This account was written only from facts that survived Augur's
corroboration pass — 4 corroborated across opposed news blocs,
1 contested (attributed to both sides), 4
single-source (attributed). Nothing was added; no significance was inferred.
Model Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.
See the evidence & the verbatim quotes →