A 42 year old woman in Ibaraki, eastern Japan, escaped her housemate after she allegedly had her lips sewn shut with a needle and thread, leaving her unable to speak, before fleeing to hold up a handwritten sign begging for help.
The woman was reportedly too frightened to leave the home at first, fearing her housemate, 49 year old Masae Sakurai. The moment Sakurai stepped out, the victim gathered the courage to escape. She wore a face mask to hide the wound and ran to a nearby shop.
Unable to speak, she showed staff a handwritten note asking for help. Staff immediately called police.
The woman later told police what had happened. Explaining Sakurai’s reaction to an ongoing dispute between them, she said Sakurai got so angry over our argument that she made me get my mouth sewn shut.
Local media reported further details of the injury. The stitches reportedly ran from beneath the woman’s nose down to the lower edge of her bottom lip, with the thread passed through the inside of her mouth, making it difficult to see from the outside.
It remains unclear exactly how Sakurai carried out the act, or what the underlying dispute between the two women was about. Sakurai has since been arrested on assault charges.
Kyodo News reported that the two women had only moved in together since April. An acquaintance of Sakurai’s told a TV Asahi news team that she was known for taking in people who had run away from home, often helping them find work. A former colleague added that Sakurai had a habit of looking after girls with nowhere else to go, particularly those who had fallen out with their parents.
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