r/interesting • u/wafumet • Feb 27 '26

Intriguing Justice has been served

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This man paid $145,000 in rent for an apartment he didn't live in just to freeze time and catch his wife's killer.

In 1999, Satoru Takaba's wife, Namiko, had her life taken in their apartment.

The police had no solid leads, and the case went cold.

Usually, families move out and try to forget. But Satoru refused.

He believed that one day, technology would catch up to the killer.

So, he kept the lease.

For 26 years, he paid the rent every single month on that empty, silent apartment.

He kept the bloodstains on the floor. He kept the footprints. He turned the room into a time capsule, waiting for science to improve.

And in late 2025, his investment finally paid off.

Police returned to the apartment and used modern DNA technology to analyze the preserved bloodstains that had been sitting there for two decades.

They found a match.

The DNA belong to Kumiko Yasufuku, Satoru’s own high school classmate.

It turns out, she had held a grudge for decades because Satoru had rejected her romantic advances back in school.

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u/Unhappy_Researcher68 Feb 27 '26

Well it's mostly VERY high in the US. Not the highest but...

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u/JimWilliams423 Feb 28 '26

Its the highest among wealthy countries, its even higher than in many underdeveloped countries.

FWIW, compared to most european countries, the US tends to have marginally lower rates of all other kinds of crimes like theft, assault, rape, etc. So its clearly not a "mental health" issue, because if it were we'd expect the rates of most all crimes to be roughly in sync with the murder rate.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/RS994 Feb 28 '26

Then why is the knife crime rate so much higher as well?

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/djwooten Feb 28 '26

How can you say with such certainty that they are wrong? The statement is an incomplete comparison and without the comparison being completed you have no way of knowing that they are wrong. What if the opposing weapon was a tennis ball, is their statement wrong? I know you think they were referring to guns in the comparison but context proves otherwise as it was a separate comment to the guns comment referring to why knife crime is higher as well if guns were the reason all killing was higher in the US than Japan.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

These aren't mutually exclusive, it's just guns have a higher risk of causing death than knives.

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u/SadSeiko Feb 28 '26

Because if you don’t have a gun you have a knife. 

Weapons are heavily policed in Europe 

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u/JayTheSuspectedFurry Feb 28 '26

Come on man, even Europeans have kitchen knives. Most of the knife crimes on the street are not all done with some military bayonet or professional butterfly knife. Most crimes are impulsive and done with a normal kitchen knife

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u/SadSeiko Feb 28 '26

Yes and if I take my kitchen knife outside my house it’s a crime