⛩️ #48 The Unbelievable Story of the Missing 9-Year-Old

A schoolgirl vanishes without a trace in 1990...

Nishitarada Elementary School, Sanjo City, Niigata Prefecture. Original image: Google

Dear Readers,

Today we’re bringing you the unbelievable true story of a nine-year-old schoolgirl who vanished without a trace from a small town in rural Japan in 1990.

What happened next defies imagination. Yes, it’s a wild one, and also our most emotional story ever…

The Missing 9 Year Old

The kids are making paper cranes.

Twenty schoolchildren lean over their desks, crafting origami birds in a kaleidoscope of colors, the bright wings slowly amassing on tabletops.

The chilly classroom is basically unchanged from fifty years earlier: a busted radiator heating system, framed calligraphy on the virtues of obedience, plus smeared remnants of arithmetic on the chalkboard.

Outside, the rice fields of rural Niigata Prefecture stretch flat and endless to the horizon, stitched by a single line of power poles marching off into the distance under a gray asthma of sky.

In the far corner of the room, ‘Y’* sits alone, head dipped in quiet concentration. Nine years old, ponytail brushing her shoulder, her fingers crease the blue sheet into the clean lines of the crane. Her lips move in a whisper, counting folds like magic spells.

(*Note: The girl's real name is readily accessible online. The Kyote is following Japanese convention by referring to her by a single initial.)

The classroom’s blown speakers crackle to life with the dreary piano ballad that signals the end of the weekly origami club and time to head home.

‘Y’ stands up and gathers her things without complaint, a reliable child with a predictable routine.

At 16:30, she leaves the school gates, the looped piano music still playing.

She pauses at the school baseball field at 16:55, where a third-grade boy sits watching his classmates knock balls across the dirt. She joined him for a while, crouching with her satchel between her knees — the sharp DING of bat hitting ball as a kid parks a home run and the field erupts with cheers.

At 17:10, she stands up, brushing dust from her trousers. “Bye-bye,” she calls to a classmate she spots across the field. The girl waves back. And then ‘Y’ was gone, following the familiar road for the short walk home.

* * *

By 19:45, her mother was pacing the house. The walk from school took twenty minutes, thirty at most. She called neighbors. Checked with friends, her guts knifed with each passing minute. There was no sign of her daughter.

Around 9 p.m., the search began in earnest. Flashlights drilled tunnels through the dark as police officers, PTA members, and the local fire brigade combed the neighborhood’s narrow roads, fields and irrigation ditches.

They found no sign of ‘Y’.

The search resumed at first light, volunteers moving phantom-like through the frost-laden fields. The baseball field was quiet.

The paper cranes sat on the classroom desks, wings folded and still.

The next official update was 4 p.m. Still nothing —no ‘Y’, no satchel, no sign of a struggle.

And the search continued for weeks.

And resulted in zero leads, zero witnesses, a big fat zero.

‘Y’ had vanished without a trace.

* * *

Nine Years Later

November 1999. Eve of the new millennium.

The world had moved on in the years since ‘Y’’s disappearance. Japan's economic bubble had spectacularly burst, and the Asian Financial Crisis followed; overseas the Soviet Union crumbled and the First Gulf War erupted. Domestic tragedies piled up: the Great Hanshin Earthquake and the Tokyo Subway Sarin Gas Attack left scars on the national psyche — prompting a belated recognition of a phenomenon known as PTSD. Meanwhile, Japan’s pop culture flourished, from Sony's PlayStation revolutionizing home entertainment to the release of a little video game named Pokémon that quickly took over living rooms worldwide.

And all through the 1990s, at a house in Sanjo City, ‘Y’’s parents still laid out dinner for her every night, hoping someday she would walk back in through the door.

On the ninth anniversary of her disappearance, the local Niigata edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper carved out a modest spot on Page 27 for a piece about police efforts to jog the public’s fading memory. A dozen officers armed with updated flyers went door to door in Sanjo City, questioned residents — but once again no leads resulted.

A police official was quoted thusly: “It’s important not to let this incident fade away. Buried information may come to light.” (事件は風化させないことが大切。埋もれていた情報が出てくるかもしれない)

What no one realized was that within three months, the truth of what had happened to ‘Y’ would emerge — and instead of a blurb buried deep in a regional newspaper, the news would detonate onto front pages around the world.

* * *

Two Mothers

The Satō house in Kashiwazaki City, Niigata. Nobuyuki Satō’s room is marked with an arrow. Original image: 要塞騎士 (Wikipedia)

In January 1996, a 70-year-old woman surnamed Satō walked into a Health Center in Kashiwazaki, a city about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Sanjo, to report that her son Nobuyuki, 33, had been violent toward her.

Following their advice, the mother visited a hospital for treatment, but the health center took no further action and the mother and grown son continued living together in the family home in a quiet suburb of the city.

Fast forward to January 2000, soon after the dawn on the new millennium. Mrs. Satō returned to the same Health Center, this time with a desperate plea: her son’s violence had escalated and he rarely left the house, having quit his job years before.

This time, Health Center and city officials determined a home visit was necessary. On January 19th, they arrived at the Satō residence. They rang the bell, but received no response. Despite suspecting someone was inside, they opted to return another time, accompanied by a doctor qualified to detain people for psychological assessment.

Around 1:30 p.m. on January 28, 2000, three cars pulled up outside the house. Seven men stepped out: a designated mental health doctor, four medical personnel, and two city employees.

Two of them waited out front while Mrs Satō let the others into the house. Her son, she explained, lived on the upper floor of the house and refused to allow her up there.

The five men climbed the stairs, and stopped at the door to a large room.

The doctor announced “I've come to examine you at your mother's request” and entered without waiting for a reply.

Nobuyuki Satō, still asleep at 13:30, woke up with a pissy “Why are you coming in?” In response, the doctor explained the law allowed him to detain him for mental assessment.

Nobuyuki got violent. The short, obese man and the health officials got into a scrum, while one of them broke away and made a hasty call to the Kashiwazaki Police Department — which had been notified in advance — and was supposed to have three officers on standby.

Unfortunately, the police — who would repeatedly muff their responsibilities that day— told the man to call back later.

As Satō continued to struggle, the doctor whipped out a syringe and shot him up with a sedative. He continued to resist until the sedative took effect, at which point he zonked off to sleep.

Then he was grappled down the stairs and into one of the cars.

But during the altercation, the health officials noticed a mass of blankets in a corner which seemed to be moving…

Suspicious, one of the city employees cut open the blanket with scissors, revealing an unusually pale, short-haired girl hiding within.

The questions quickly followed: “Who are you?” “What's your name?” “Where are you from?” but the girl could only stammer out the words “I can't process my emotions.” (気持ちの整理が付かないから).

The Doctor took charge, asking that Mrs Satō be brought upstairs.

The old woman climbed the stairs to the second floor of her own home from which her son had forbidden her — to be confronted by a pale girl and five health officials demanding answers.

Doctor: “Who is this woman?”

Mrs Satō: “I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.”

The Doctor has seen more outré things than a man who’s sneaked a girl in without a mother knowing. He turns back to the girl.

Doctor: “The man who was here is being admitted to hospital, so we don’t know when he’ll return. What will you do?”

The girl seems frozen by the choice.

Then she turns to Mrs Satō to ask a timid question:

Girl: “Is it okay for me to stay here?”

Mrs Satō: “Yes, okay.”

City Official: “That’s not the issue! You need to contact your family!”

A beat, then:

Girl: “My house may no longer exist.”

Looks are exchanged.

Mrs Satō is the one who responds:

Mrs Satō: “Where is your house?”

Another beat.

Girl: “…maybe it’s here now.”

* * *

Afterwards, the comatose Satō, his mother, and ‘Y’ were taken in different cars to hospital.

On the way, the girl was again pressed for her name, and she responded she was ‘Y’, from an address in Sanjo City, adding her date of birth, and the names of her parents.

That’s when one of the health workers remembered the story of the little girl who had gone missing nearly a decade earlier.

Upon arriving at the hospital, they called the phone number the girl said was of her family home, and although the call rang, no one picked up.

While an examination revealed the girl was suffering severe malnutrition, muscle weakness in both legs, osteoporosis, and anemia, the staff contacted Kashiwazaki Police Station. Finally, the police rushed to the hospital— and confirmed the girl was indeed ‘Y.’"

* * *

Hours later, ‘Y’’s parents arrived from their home only 50km from the Satō house.

Her mother was led into the room first. As doctors and police officers watched on, she approached the gaunt 19-year-old —

— and did not recognize her daughter —

Until ‘Y’ said, “Mom, it's me.” (お母さん、私だよ).

* * *

Later, her father gave a statement to the press outside the family home: “We owe it all to everyone's cooperation. Thank you so much. We have never forgotten our daughter even once in these nearly ten years. We’re relieved to see that she is doing well. My daughter also said that she was doing well.”

‘Y’’s mother, clung to her husband's shoulder, weeping silently.

* * *

“I was on my way home from the playground near school when a man forced me into his car at knifepoint. From that day until today, I didn’t leave the second floor of the man's house .”

That’s ‘Y’, explaining to police what happened.

* * *

The police investigation was initially hampered by the fact that Nobuyuki Satō’s mental agitation was considered so severe doctors refused police permission to question him for two weeks.

In the meantime, investigators focused on his 70-year-old mother, who claimed total ignorance of the girl’s presence, despite living directly below her for the previous 9 years.

She repeated the story she had told the health officials: such was her fear of her son that she had avoided the second floor entirely, and had met ‘Y’ for the first time on the day the health officials visited her home.

The claim seemed extraordinary — and dubious. The press, which had swarmed the cities of Kashiwazaki and Sanjo, had a field day, fueling speculation that Mrs. Satō was complicit in the crime.

She had after all been cooking meals too large even for her obese son, and there were suggestions she had bought feminine hygiene products which were handed to him.

However, according to a neighbor, “I once saw her come back from an outing and get scolded by her son for entering the house without permission.”

It became clear that Satō had meticulously hidden ‘Y’’s existence — including throwing away her dirty clothes rather than washing them.

When ‘Y’, resting in hospital, felt able to speak to a female investigator, she confirmed: in the nine years she was in the upstairs room, she had never met Mrs. Satō.

Nobuyuki Satō was finally arrested two weeks after ‘Y’’s rescue, with the permission of the doctors who had been treating him.

But here’s the heart-stopper: by the time police finally questioned Nobuyuki Satō, the world already knew one chilling fact — ‘Y’ was not the first girl he had kidnapped.

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I’m Emotionally Stunted. Now I’ll Stunt You Too.

Nobuyuki Satō was an only child, born when his father was 62 and his mother 36. His mother doted on him, often driving him to his job at a local precision parts manufacturer after he graduated from technical high school.

Though he’d been academically successful, Satō struggled socially and the transition to adult life seemed beyond him — he soon began arriving late to work and, after being reprimanded multiple times, he lost his temper and quit just three months into his career.

A man who was in the same class for three years in high school and got a job at the same manufacturer recalled, “Satō didn't have many friends even in high school, but it seems he was having more trouble with social interactions after he got the job. Just before he quit, I heard him say, 'No one talks to me.'

Following his resignation, Satō grew increasingly reclusive and violent at home, including throwing eggs and stones at neighbors’ houses.

His mother, desperate to integrate him into society, bought him a popular car and even borrowed seven million yen to build him a separate upstairs room after he promised to find another job if she did so.

Despite her efforts, Satō never worked again. Obsessed with cars, he collected motoring magazines, demanding pristine copies and making his mother exchange any with creased pages.

Some people noticed that Mrs. Satō behavior had started to change around the time the father died. neighbors noticed bruises on which she dismissed with vague explanations.

Neighbors said that the curtains on the second-floor windows — Nobuyuki’s domain — were always closed and paper was pasted on the inside, making it impossible to see inside.

Kidnapping #1

June 13, 1989. Satō laid in wait outside an elementary school in Kashiwazaki City. He followed a fourth-grade girl (then 9 years old, just as ‘Y’ would be) and lured her into a vacant lot by the side of the road about 300 m from the school and attempted to molest her.

However, two older students from the same school witnessed the victim being carried away, and Satō was apprehended by teachers and staff who rushed to the scene.

He admitted to the crime and was indicted on a charge of indecent assault. Sentenced to one year in prison with three years of probation by the Niigata District Court, the judge stated “the possibility of reoffending is low,” and instead of the official probation service, he entrusted the supervision to Satō’s mother.

Fatefully, the Kashiwazaki police failed to register Satō on the official list of convicted criminals, even after his sentence was finalized.

When ‘Y’ went missing in 1990, Sanjo Police investigated individuals with criminal records with the cooperation of other stations in Niigata, but Satō never emerged as a suspect during their enquiries. A senior police investigator later said, “We assumed that the crime had been committed by someone familiar with the area, so we focused our investigation on Sanjo City and the surrounding cities and towns, but I don't think we extended our search to people in Kashiwazaki, 50 kilometers away.”

Despite being on probation for attempting an almost-identical crime, Satō fell through the cracks during the initial investigation into ‘Y’’s disappearance.

Location of Nishitarada Elementary School and the Satō house, in Niigata Prefecture. Click for detail. Image: Google Maps

3,364 days

Warning: descriptions of physical violence

When police were finally able to interview Nobuyuki Satō, he readily admitted to the crime.

That may have been because under Japanese law, the maximum sentence for kidnapping and confinement of a minor was only five years in prison.

Barely half the 9 years ‘Y’ had spent in the room.

If the police wanted to keep him behind bars for longer, there was another charge they could employ: kidnapping and confinement resulting in injury to a minor.

Could they prove that she had suffered injury? Satō seemed confident they couldn’t.

Satō: “I was looking for a girl, and I happened to see her, and I took her because she was cute. She started to follow my instructions very well. I wanted to live with her forever. We were able to talk on an equal footing about horse racing, cars, and my other hobbies. Basically, I liked her [as a person]. She was an irreplaceable conversation partner, so I couldn't let her go.”

He provided ‘Y’ with comic books and newspapers, and talked with her about current affairs she learned from the radio and TV — to “keep her from thinking like a child” — and talked proudly about how he had taught her factorization and proportional expressions despite the fact that they were math concepts not of practical use “in the real world” (his expression), but useful to learn anyway.

Indeed, tests conducted after ‘Y’ was rescued, found her intellectual development comparable to her peers, and she had no noticeable gaps in knowledge or vocabulary.

At trial, the defense argued this should be grounds for leniency.

Now let’s go to ‘Y’’s testimony on him: “He had a neurotic personality and short temper. He was incredibly self-centered and violent. He would always say, ‘Anyone who gets caught by the police is an idiot. I'm not going back to the scene of the crime, so I'll never get caught.’ Every time I heard those words, I was overcome with intense anger. He was such a despicable person I felt him unworthy of spending energy hating or fearing him.”

And then — and this is important — there were the details:

Satō repeatedly used threatening language held a knife on her, and punched her in the face. For the first two to three months after the abduction — ‘Y’ a 9-year-old girl — he tied her hands and feet tightly when he went out or went to sleep to prevent her from moving, let alone escaping.

Although he stopped binding her hands, the binding of her legs continued for about another year, causing ‘Y’ to lose her will to escape.

He ordered her not to shout, and to hide her face or hide under a blanket when he entered or left her room so she wouldn’t know the layout of the house.

She was ordered to stay on the bed and not to move around. If she did so, he assaulted her.

After the first or second year, he began to use a stun gun to impose his rules, but ‘Y’ feared he may stab her to death if she screamed, so began to endure the assaults by biting her own body or the blankets in silence.

‘Y’ thought she had been lightly beaten about 700 times and more severely beaten about 200 to 300 times during her captivity.

At a certain point, ‘Y’ began to offer her cheek for him to assault, trying to avoid the chance of going blind if he hit her in the eyes, and also began to use the stun gun on herself to desensitize to the pain.

‘Y’ also described dissociating during the beatings, imagining that someone else was being hit and not her.

At first, Satō fed ‘Y’ with a boxed lunch which his mother had prepared for him as a midnight snack. However, considering the burden too great on his elderly mother (what a prince!), he switched to buying convenience store bento lunches.

Around 1996, Satō noticed a bruise on ‘Y’’s leg that he assumed was due to the high protein diet he was providing. Deciding the bruise could progress to diabetes — since ‘Y’ was not allowed to exercise — Satō decided the only option was to reduce her calorific intake to one meal a day.

‘Y’’s condition worsened, and when Satō weighed her, she had dropped from 46kg to 38kg. She began to experience fainting spells, but Satō's only response was to add a single rice ball to her lunch.

‘Y’ was only allowed to exercise by bending her legs in bed. Later, Satō allowed her to occasionally tap her feet on the floor, but only when his mother was out of the house.

She could only stand by holding on to Satō's arm, and had also adopted Satō’s germaphobia — like him refusing to use the toilet and instead defecating in plastic bags.

‘Y’ was only allowed one bath during her nine year confinement, which she dated to some time around 1992-1993, when she fell off the bed and became covered in dust. She was made to take a shower, blindfolded, on the lower floor of the house, when Satō’s mother was absent.

As Upstairs, So Below

The public was astonished that ‘Y’ never attempted to escape during her nine-year captivity — after the first years of being tied up, she was often left alone in the unlocked upper room while Nobuyuki Satō was out of the house, and asked if she could stay at the house on the day of her rescue.

Equally baffling to many people was Mrs. Satō’s behavior — never setting boundaries with her son despite his escalating violence.

Like Satō’s mother downstairs, ‘Y’ upstairs had succumbed to learned hopelessness, a loss of will to resist prolonged abuse. Nobuyuki Satō had managed to impose the same state on both his mother and his captive, trapping them in parallel worlds of silent despair, meters apart but unknown to each other.

Punishment

Sympathy for law enforcement is in short supply these days, and the Niigata Prefectural Police hardly distinguished themselves during the ‘Y’ case.

However, taxpayers expect the police to maintain parallel positions: protecting them from criminals while also safeguarding the rights of those same criminals.

All police officers know these there are times these goals are mutually exclusive, and living in that tension is what causes them stress, addiction, heart attacks, and self-pity.

With ‘Y’’s injuries clearly established and Satō’s confession in hand, it seemed certain he would face a 10-year sentence — barely longer than ‘Y’’s captivity.

So the Niigata Prefectural Police decided justice and the law were at odds, and sought ways to keep him behind bars for longer. Japanese legislation allows for a sentence to be increased by up to 1.5 times if the crime is aggravated by other offenses.

Rather than attempt an all-out frame-job — likely to fail in such a high-profile case — investigators starting looked for minor offenses Satō may have committed. They struck upon a charge of shoplifting women’s underwear, worth about 2,000 yen ($12) — allegedly for ‘Y’ — and added this to the indictment.

The prosecution thus requested a 15-year sentence: 10 for the kidnapping, plus the 1.5x multiplier for the theft.

Later, Satō claimed he struck a deal with the prosecution, agreeing to accept the further charge in exchange for the chance to gamble on horse races.

“I have no recollection of having committed the theft, and I unwillingly admitted to it. At the time, I really wanted to gamble on a horse race, plus I wanted to meet my mother, so I ended up submitting to the prosecutor in return for [having his mother come to jail so he could instruct her which betting tickets to buy]. For me, horse racing was easily as important as years of freedom.”

* * *

The trial ended in a verdict of 14 years in prison.

An appeal reduced the sentence to 11 years, agreeing that the extra 4 years tacked on for shoplifting was excessive.

Then the Supreme Court reinstated the original verdict: Nobuyuki Satō would be spending 14 years behind bars.

Letters From a Genius of Self-Pity

Dear “Sir/Madam”,

The “green” of the “young leaves” is “growing brighter” with “each passing day”. To “all” of you in “your company and department”, “starting” with “you”, I would like to express my “congratulations” on your continued “prosperity.” “I” am “Nobuyuki Satō,” the “defendant” in the so-called “Niigata Girl Kidnapping Case” that was “discovered” and “exposed” in 2000.

Prison letter from Nobuyuki Satō. The quote marks are from the original.

In 2006, Nobuyuki Satō began a correspondence with journalist Kae Morishita from his cell in Chiba Prison.

At first, Satō refused to discuss anything beyond his own health, claiming repeatedly to be on the verge of death due to prison conditions.

Or perhaps he was just an obese man forced to lose weight.

At Morishita’s urging, in later letters he opened up about ‘Y’, and apologized — but only in a Nobuyuki Satō way:

“Let's suppose that in the future”, “she” finds a “good partner” and is later “blessed” with the “crystal of love”, and when that “child” grows up, “she” becomes “interested” in “her mother’s” childhood, and “demands” to “see” a “photo album” which is “a record” of her mother’s “growth”, but there is a “blank period” of “more than nine years”, which is “almost impossible” and “at the very least”, things like “commemorative photographs” taken at “school” would “normally” exist, so if “her” “child” were to “beg” her to “explain” this “strangeness”, “she” would “become” extremely “troubled”.

“She” is probably feeling “fear” “that day” will come, despite “the excitement” of “her child” growing up, and is probably “piling up” days of anxiety, knowing she will have to “talk” about “the incident.”

“I” am “truly” sorry to “her.”

An apology for the future, not for what he did to her.

Finally, a last letter, before we wrap up ‘Y’’s tale:

Currently, I am being forced to endure worse conditions than she was in, and I am spending my days feeling a sense of sadness. I am filled with loathing, disgust, and hatred towards the prison system.

If I were to be released now, I would turn from a seemingly happy person into a serial killer.

The existence of that consciousness that lurks deep within the human heart is something to be feared. That is why I hope that she will grow into a person without a single flaw, not just those which are visible to others, but also in the innermost part of her heart. I believe that she is capable of this, and that the day will come.

Postscript

• The last public update on ‘Y’ appeared in November 2006, when she was 25 years old. The Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted local Sanjo City residents: “she's a really nice young lady who smiles and can talk to anyone,” and “I saw her helping her grandfather with farm work, and now she's plump and beautiful.”

• She enjoyed photography, and at one time was passionate about taking pictures of children, animals, and plants in her neighborhood, visiting neighbors and asking them if she could take pictures of the flowers in their gardens.

• Despite these reports suggesting a return to normalcy, it seems likely the trauma she endured will have had deep and lasting effects.

• ‘Y’’s father died in an accident in October 2007.

• Nobuyuki Satō's mother developed dementia. When journalist Kae Morishita informed the imprisoned Satō of his mother’s condition, he replied “That might make my mother happier.”

• In a subsequent prison letter, he explained: “I want her to think, ‘I'm glad I gave birth to this child [him],’ although many things have happened.”

• Morishita visited Mrs. Satō at the nursing home where she resided and read her son's letter to her. She reacted by saying, “I never thought Nobuyuki could write a proper letter.”

• She passed away before she could visit him again.

• Niigata Prefectural Police Chief Koji Kobayashi admitted that had Satō been included on the list of convicted criminals as he should have been after his first attack, ‘Y’’s abduction may have been discovered earlier.

• Kobayashi resigned, but not for this particular error in the initial investigation — instead, he quit after it was discovered that on the day ‘Y’ was found, he declined to return to Sanjo City to supervise the case and instead spent his evening playing mahjong with the head of the Regional Police Bureaus.

• Nobuyuki Satō was released from Chiba Prison after serving his 14 year sentence.

• He subsequently lived alone close to the prison, never returning to the Niigata region.

• He died from natural causes in 2017.

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Stay safe everyone.

Until next time,

The Kyote

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The Kyote is published in Kyoto, Japan, every Sunday at 19:00 JST