A 29-year-old man standing trial in Ibaraki has told a court he murdered his pregnant ex-girlfriend because he wanted to wipe her out of his life and start over.
Takumi Ouchi is accused of stalking and killing 31-year-old Haruka Komatsumoto in Mito on New Year’s Eve last year. Komatsumoto was a manicurist who had recently opened her own salon. By the time of the attack she had married someone else and was five months pregnant.
Ouchi said she was his first and only girlfriend. They met about three years earlier when he was a customer at her workplace. After she ended things, he couldn’t let go.
“I tried to forget her by throwing myself into work, but I couldn’t,” he told the court last week. When his lawyer asked why he went as far as murder, he answered: he wanted to “erase her existence, go back to before we met, and reset.”
According to his testimony, the stalking lasted about six months. He said he knew he had a problem, even researched stalker psychology and saw a clinical psychologist for two months. When he couldn’t get a further appointment because the clinic was booked, he said his frustration boiled over. By October — two months before the killing — he had already decided to do it.
He tracked her using Bluetooth anti-lost tags. He hid one in a stuffed animal left at her parents’ house. When she took the toy with her, he got a rough location. Because the first tag wasn’t precise enough, he attached another to a car he believed was hers. Once the data showed the car going back to her parents’ place, he figured he had her address.
On December 31 he showed up at her home dressed as a delivery worker. When she answered the intercom, he attacked her. He told the court he then used a kitchen knife because he wasn’t sure she was dead.
Ouchi claimed he had no idea she was married and pregnant until he saw it on the news afterward. “I was like, ‘No way.’ If I had known she was married and pregnant, I don’t think I would have gone that far,” he said.
Prosecutors pointed to how little it seemed to shake him. Asked what he did on New Year’s Day, the day after the killing, he said he stayed home and went out like usual. He also admitted looking up and visiting a sex worker shortly afterward.
When the judge asked how he feels about the victim now, Ouchi said he is truly sorry. “I don’t expect to be forgiven, but I want to convey my feelings… remorse, just remorse.”
The case is still before the court.