Episode 20: Hikari Mother-Child Murder

Black Torii — Japanese True Crime · Jul 21, 2026 · 10m

April 14, 1999. A young mother is home alone with her baby daughter in Hikari City, a small coastal town in Yamaguchi Prefecture, at the western tip of Japan's main island. Her husband left for work that morning the same way he always did. She has no reason to think today is anything other than an ordinary Thursday. There is a knock at the door. The man outside says he's there to check the plumbing. She lets him in. In the next few minutes, Yayoi Motomura — twenty-three years old, with an eleven-month-old daughter named Yūka — will be murdered in her own home. Her baby will be murdered too…