WARNING: SOME IMAGES MAY BE GRAPHIC
What happens when a geisha, a sex worker, falls in love with her boss and becomes not only jealous but enraged with the fact they could never be together?
This story not only shows how one's childhood reflects their adulthood but also how a murderer can somehow also be a victim.
Get ready 'cause our crime scene is in Kanda, Japan.
Our story starts on 18th of May 1936, when a woman checks out of the hotel at 8AM telling the receptionist to leave her boss, Ishida, to rest for a while. Hours later, the cleaners find Ishida dead with his genitals missing and words carved on his thigh and "Sada" on his left arm.
This story went famous throughout Japan causing for a national search with every citizen searching for Sada. The ectasy for her search was called the "Abe Sada Panic".
Police kept receiving reports of sighting of Abe but on the 21st of May (3 days after discovering the body), police detectives get suspicious of a person when a certain alias was used when checking in at another hotel.
They decided to do further investigation and when knocking on the door of the hotel room, a woman appeared telling them to not be so formal since she's Sada Abe and as proof, she showed them Ishida's genitals.
After Abe was being interrogated for over 8 sessions, one of the detectives was shocked by her attitude when asked why she killed Ishida. She'd become excited and her eyes would sparkle in a strange way then answer:
"I loved him so much, I wanted him to myself. Since we're not husband and wife, as long as he lived, he could be embraced by other women. I knew that if I killed him, no other woman could ever touch him again so I did."
You're probably thinking that she's weird, that she has a weird perception on love or you're probably wondering how did she even come to that level of craziness...
...Well this is how the fatal love story begins:
Abe grew up in Japan. In her childhood, she was part of the upper middle class and was the 2nd youngest out of her 7 siblings. Only 4 managed to survive to their teenage years so Abe became the youngest child.
When Abe's dad, Shigeyoshi, was young, he was adopted to the Abe family and eventually inherited the mat making business. The police described him "an honest upright man." However, some of his acquitances said he could be self-centered.
Obviously you don't personally know Abe's dad but one thing I can tell you is that he had a weird way of punishing his kids.
Teruko, Abe's sister, was known to have several lovers so as a punishment, her father sent her to a house of prostitution. After a while, he brought her back home. Since she was part of the upper class, her past didn't cause any obstacle for her to get married and soon she got eloped.
Abe's brother, Shintaro, was a womaniser. He got married then ran off with his parents money leaving the family with financial problems.
Sada Abe was still at school at this time. Since she was the youngest, her mum spoilt her and let her do as she wished. She even encouraged Abe to take singing lessons and learn how to play the shamisen (a traditional Japanese musical instrument). It seems like nothing but back then, these activites were closely associated with geishas and prostitues. She would even skip school just to attend to these classes and would wear stylish make up.
If you don't know what geishas are, geishas are professional entertainers (women only). They are trained in traditional styles of performing arts like: Japenese dance, music, singing and communication. They don't usually sleep with their clients however the lower ranking of geishas do.
Teeth blackening was once a common practice mainly amongst married women in Japan. Dying teeth black would be done during puberty or to (un)married women, sex workers or geishas.
By the age of 15, with all the pressure of the other siblings and the family problems caused, Abe was most often sent out of the house alone and quickly fell in with the wrong crowd. She was raped.
Even though her parents defended and supported her, Abe became a diffcult teenager so they sold her to a geisha house in 1922. Toku, another sister of Abe, testified that Abe always wanted to be a geisha however Abe claims that her dad sold her as punishment for her promiscuity.
It was frustrating and disappointing for Sada Abe when it came to the geisha world because to become a true star, it required training from childhood with years of studying arts and music. She became a lower-ranking geisha so her main duty was to provide sex.
She continued down this path for 5 years and caught a disease called syphilis. She was still allowed to work as long as she had regular examinations so decided to enter a better paying profession.
She began working as a prostitute in another prostitution house called Tobita District and soon got a bad reputation of being a trouble-maker. She would steal from clients and try to leave the brothel multiples times but was always tracked down the well-organised legal prostitution system. Two years later, she managed to escape and worked as a waitress. But she wasn't satisfied with the wages so she worked as a prostitute again.
Abe's mother died in January 1933 (11 years after being sold) so she went to Tokyo to visit her mother's grave. A year later, Abe nursed her ill dad until his last breath. During the year, she entered an illegal prostitution market and became a mistress from time to time.
Arrestation of prostitutes working illegally
She was then arrested for working as a prostitute at an illegal brothel but Kinnosuke Kasahara, a friend of the owner of the illegal prostitution house, arranged for Abe to be released since he was attracted to her and, with Abe's agreement, became his mistress. He, then, set up a house for Abe and provided her with money.
Now thinking about the past between the two, Kinnosuke told the police detectives that Abe was "really strong, a real powerful one" as he was interviewed by the police about Abe killing Ishida. He explained that she wasn't satisfied unless they did it two, three, or four times a night. At first it was great, but after a couple of weeks he got a little exhausted.
When Abe suggested that he left his wife for her, he refused. After his response, she asked him if she could find another lover whhile he's still in the picture but he also refused so she decided to end it with him.
Kinnosuke Kasahara ended his testimony by calling Abe a slut and a whore whom men should fear but Abe says that he treated her like an animal and never loved her. That he even pleaded her after they broke up.
In Nagoya 1935 (13 years after entering the prostitution world), Abe again decided to leave the prostitution life and became a maid at a restaurant but then fell in love with a customer called Goro Omiya. He was a professor and a banker whose aim was to become part of The Diet (Japanese parliament). Abe knew she couldn't continue working at the restaurant if she had a sexual relationship with one of the customers so she went back to Tokyo. Omiya met her over there and found out she had syphilis so helped her out. He paid for her stay in hot springs resort until January 1936.
Omiya suggested she could become financially independent by opening a small restaurant or start working as an apprentice position in such a business.
Abe decided the second option was best so she joined a restaurant called Yoshidaya in the beginning of February.
The owner of the business was a 42 year old man, Kichizo Ishida.
Yes, this is the moment you've been waiting for...
Ishida was a hard working man who worked his way up in business by also starting as an apprentice.
Ishida Kichizo
At the time when Abe joined his restaurant, Ishida was known as a womaniser who did little in a way of running the restaurant which was managed mostly by his wife. Not long after, Ishida started flirting with Abe. Omiya, Abe's ex, never really satisfied Abe sexually so she gave into Ishida.
Abe and Ishida started their sexual relationship in the restaurant while listening to a romantic song sung by one of the restaurant's geishas.
On 23rd April, they met at a machiai for a sexual encounter. They were planning to have a short fling but stayed in bed for 4 days straight.
BTW a machiai is a teahouse but it's also like a love hotel. Anywayyss, back to the story...
Four days later, they moved to another teahouse in a neighbourhood called Futako Tamagwa. That's when they continued to drink, have sex while a geisha singing for them or even when the maids were in the room cleaning. Awkwwaarrrddd!
But they didn't even stop there, they went to ANOTHER tea house to continue doing their business.
After this, Ishida didn't return to the restaurant until the morning of the 8th of May (more than 2 weeks later). When they separated, Abe started drinking a lot and became more agitated, she felt like with Ishida, she knew what love was and to think of Ishida going back to his wife made her jealous.
Feeling these emotions, she started thinking about killing him a week before committing the act. Abe went to watch a play where a geisha attacks her lover with a knife. Inspired by this scene, Abe decided to threaten Ishida with a knife next time she sees him...
...She took the knife out of her bag and told him "Kichi, you wore that kimono just to please one of your favorite customers. You bastard, I'll kill you for that."
Abe claims that Ishida took a step back but looked delighted with it. Seems weird, right? But it gets weirder.
Abe and Ishida then moved to Ogu and this is the last time Ishida was seen alive. During their intercourse, Abe took out her knife and put it near the base of his penis warning him she'd make sure that he could never play around with other women but Ishida only laughed at her comment.
Two nights after, Abe started choking Ishida while having sex. This pleasured him a lot so told her to start doing that each time they done it and he would also choke Abe too.
On 16th May, Abe choked Ishida with her obi sash during orgasm which pleasured the both of them so they continued this for 2 more hours. Once Abe stopped the strangulation, Ishida's face became distorted and wouldn't go back to normal.
An obi sash
Ishida took 30 pills of sedatives to try to calm his pain down then went to sleep. Abe claims that Ishida told her before going to sleep "You'll put the cord around my neck and squeeze it again while I'm sleeping, won't you? If you start to strangle me, don't stop, because it is so painful afterwards." Abe wasn't sure if he was being serious so just took it as a joke.
On the night of the murder, around 2am while Ishida fell asleep, Abe wrapped her sash around his neck and strangled him to death. After committing this act, she felt a sense of clarity like a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders.
After laying with his body for a few hours, she cut off his genital because she wanted to take something that would make her remember their memories together. She then wrapped it in some magazine cover and wrote their name in his blood and carved her name on his left arm. After putting his underwear on, she checked out of the hotel.
During the three day search for her, she went shopping, saw a movie then went to visit Omiya, the banker and professor, to apologise to him. He didn't know about the crime, he just thought it was because she had another lover but she was actually apologising for ruining his career since he associated with her.
She then went back to the hotel, tried to practice necrophilia - tried pleasuring herself with Ishida's penis but it didn't work. She even wrote goodbye letters to everyone since her plan was to kill herself at the end of the week.
When her reason why she committed this crime became viral, there was rumour spreading about the enormous size of Ishida's member but the detective who interviewed Abe quoted her response to the rumour: "Size don't make a man in bed. Technique and his desire to please me were what I like about Ishida."
An expert examined and realised that Abe hasn't killed out of jealousy but out of love. But honestly, I believe she killed him out of selfishness. What do you think?
Let me know in the comments.
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