Episode 3: Kobe Child Murders (Sakakibara Case)

Black Torii — Japanese True Crime · Jul 4, 2026 · 12m

On the morning of May 27, 1997, teachers and students arriving at Tomogaoka Junior High School in Kobe found something waiting for them at the school gate. Something that would stop an entire nation cold. There, placed with apparent deliberateness, was the severed head of an eleven-year-old boy. Stuffed in his mouth was a handwritten note, signed with a name no one recognized: "Seito Sakakibara." The note promised that this was only the beginning. Japan had not seen anything like it. The person who left that note — who had committed these crimes — was not a shadowed adult with a long criminal…