TOKYO (TR) — “I was thinking about involving others in my death.”
These had been the chilling phrases 26-year-old Taiki Hirokawa informed investigators months earlier than he carried out a brutal murder-suicide at a busy business advanced in Ikebukuro, leaving his 21-year-old ex-girlfriend lifeless, studies Jiji Press (Apr. 2).
On the night of March 26, terror struck the Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo contained in the Sunshine City mall in Toshima Ward. Hirokawa, wielding a knife, stormed the crowded store and repeatedly stabbed part-time worker Moe Harukawa in a focused assault. The suspect then turned the blade on himself, slashing his personal throat. Both had been later pronounced lifeless.
Details rising from the continuing police investigation paint a darkish image of a relationship that spiraled right into a deadly obsession. According to police, the 2 met in December 2023 at a fast-food restaurant in Hachioji City, the place they each labored.
“You’re not cut out for it”
After Harukawa ended the connection, Hirokawa’s habits escalated right into a marketing campaign of harassment, which included the sending of abusive messages. He wrote, “Quit your job at the Pokémon Center because you’re not cut out for it.”
She then blocked him on the chat app Line, which triggered the suspect to have interaction in stalking habits in 2025. On December 25, a message card was left in entrance of her dwelling that learn, “Please contact me tonight. Please help me.”
Harukawa contacted the police that very same day. When investigators escorted her dwelling, they discovered the suspect close by and arrested him on suspicion of violating the Stalker Control Law.
During questioning after his arrest, the suspect confessed, “I loved her. I wanted to get back together with her.” A fruit knife was present in a rental automotive parked close by. He reportedly mentioned on the time, “I was thinking about suicide. I was thinking about involving others in my death.”
Despite being ordered to pay an 800,000 yen tremendous following a abstract indictment in January, his lethal fixation remained unchecked.
Swimmer in his youth
Relatives of the suspect have expressed shock on the tragedy. Raised primarily in Okinawa Prefecture by a single mom, Hirokawa was a aggressive swimmer in his youth, as soon as serving to his group set a prefectural center college file within the 800-meter relay.
“He was a gentle, upstanding older brother to his younger siblings,” one former neighbor recalled. However, after failing his college entrance exams, his life appeared to lose course.
Shortly earlier than the bloody rampage, Hirokawa reportedly boasted to his mom, “I got a girlfriend!” This delusion is what investigators consider might have triggered his closing, deadly outburst.
The case has reignited fierce debate over the effectiveness of present anti-stalking legal guidelines, as Harukawa’s determined pleas to authorities had been in the end unable to save lots of her from her ex-lover’s assault.