{"id":55856,"date":"2026-07-09T17:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T17:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/55856\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T17:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T17:21:07","slug":"woman-sews-roommates-lips-shut-in-horrifying-attack-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/55856\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman sews roommate&#8217;s lips shut in horrifying attack in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A twisted Japanese woman sewed her roommate\u2019s lips shut \u201cwith a needle and thread,\u201d sending the victim rushing out into the streets with a hand-written sign reading \u201cplease help me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 42-year-old victim was initially too scared to flee the house in the eastern prefecture of Ibaraki in Tokyo\u2019s northeast because she was too terrified of her 49-year-old roommate, Masae Sakurai, according to reports.<\/p>\n<p>But once Sakurai wasn\u2019t home, the sewed-up woman managed to escape, put on a white mask to hide the gruesome sight and rush to a nearby shop, NHK reported.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39933431\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/woman-arrested-japan-allegedly-sewing-133871587.jpg\" alt=\"Masae Sakurai, 49, after being arrested in Japan.\" class=\"wp-image-39933431\"  \/>Masae Sakurai, 49, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a needle and thread for allegedly sewing her roommate\u2019s mouth shut after an argument, cops said.<\/p>\n<p>Unable to speak, the victim held up her handwritten help sign, prompting an employee to call police, NHK reported.<\/p>\n<p>She then told police that Sakurai \u201cbecame angry over a trouble and my lips were sewed,\u201d according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/world-news\/2026\/07\/09\/woman-arrested-in-japan-for-sewing-housemates-lips-shut\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Telegraph<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Local media reported her mouth had been pierced with a needle several times, entering her skin underneath her nose and exiting through the bottom of her lower lip.<\/p>\n<p>The threading was done in such a way that it passed through the inside of her mouth, which made it difficult to see the string.<\/p>\n<p>It was not immediately clear how Sakurai managed to pull off the attack, nor what \u201ctrouble\u201d angered her, but she was arrested on suspicion of assault.<\/p>\n<p>The women had been living together since April, Kyodo News wrote.<\/p>\n<p>People who know Sakurai told TV Asahi that she would often let people who ran away from home stay with her, and even helped them find jobs, one of her former coworkers telling the outlet she had a penchant for \u201ctaking care of girls who have nowhere to go after reaching out to their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A twisted Japanese woman sewed her roommate\u2019s lips shut \u201cwith a needle and thread,\u201d sending the victim rushing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2072,20504,8,33,36855,52,213],"class_list":["post-55856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-arrest","tag-attack","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-roommates","tag-tokyo","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}