Decapitated Head Found at Sapporo Home of Arrested Doctor, Daughter

Runa Tamura (C) is transported to the Hokkaido prefectural police headquarters in Sapporo on July 24, 2023. (Kyodo)

SAPPORO – The decapitated head of a man found dead in a Sapporo hotel earlier this month has been discovered at the home of a doctor and daughter who were arrested on suspicion of damaging his body, police said Tuesday.

The head was discovered Monday during a search of the property of the psychiatrist, Osamu Tamura, 59, and his daughter Runa, 29, in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Tamura’s 60-year-old wife, Hiroko, was arrested on the same charge Tuesday, the police said.

AP23206065508650
Runa Tamura, who was arrested in connection with the case that a headless man was found, is transferred from a police station in Sapporo, northern Japan Monday, July 24, 2023. (Kyodo News via AP)

The police are investigating the relationship between the daughter and the victim, identified as 62-year-old Hitoshi Ura, who was found naked and decapitated in the bathroom of a hotel room on July 2.

Investigators said they plan to conduct an autopsy of the head. An earlier autopsy of the body revealed that the cause of death was hemorrhagic shock.

Advertisement

There were no signs of a third person entering the hotel room, with the daughter believed to have committed the act on her own. Osamu, a psychiatrist at a hospital in Sapporo, is suspected of dropping off and picking up his daughter.

AP23206060058552
This shows a hotel where the headless body of a man was found in Sapporo, northern Japan on July 8, 2023. Japanese police said Tuesday, July 25 they have arrested a woman and her parents in a bizarre beheading case in a popular night entertainment district in Japan’s northern city of Sapporo, where the headless man was found in a hotel room three weeks ago. (Kyodo News via AP)

Ura and another individual, believed to be the daughter, checked into the hotel around 10:50 p.m. on July 1, with the other person leaving alone at about 2 a.m. the following day, according to police.

Ura’s body was discovered later on July 2 by a hotel worker who went to the room to see why he had not checked out by the afternoon.

Security camera footage showed no one else entered or left the room between 2 a.m. and 3 p.m. on July 2.

Police have yet to find Ura’s belongings, including his clothes, phone and identification.

The incident occurred in the Susukino area of the city where many short-stay “love hotels” are located.

Advertisement

______

Related news:

Woman Arrested for Disposing of Headless Body at Sapporo Hotel