Woman ‘sewed roommate’s lips shut’ as victim alerted store worker with ‘help me’ note

WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT: Masae Sakurai, 49, has been arrested after allegedly sewing the mouth of her female roommate shut with a needle and thread as the victim managed to escape to a store for help

A woman has been arrested after allegedly sewing the lips of the roommate together with a needle and thread at a house in Japan.

Masae Sakurai, a 49-year-old woman from Koga, was arrested on Monday (July 6) on suspicion of injuring her 42-year-old woman that she lived with, according to police reports in Japan.

The victim, who has not been named, may have spent almost a day with her mouth sewn shut with the horrifying incident occurring at 1:30pm on June 29. Police report that the needle and thread went threw the upper and lower lips of the victim multiple times.

After managing to escape the property the following day (June 30), the woman was reportedly unable to speak due to the tightness of sewing done by Sakurai. In a desperate attempt to gain help, she wrote a note to a worker at a nearby store.

The victim, who reportedly wore a face mask to hide her injuries from members of the public, wrote the words “help me”.

Police asked the victim, who moved in with Sakurai in April 2025, why she did not run away from Sakurai immediately. The victim responded that she lived in fear of her roommate, according to Japanese media outlet TNN.

According to Japan Today, Police said the woman told them: “I was afraid of Sakurai, so I couldn’t escape right away.”

The exact of the victim’s wounds has yet to be disclosed, but police confirmed that her life is not in danger.

Police are continuing their investigations and it is believed that there could have been more people living in the house along with the two women. Interviews with some of those people have already taken place.

It has been reported that Sakurai’s home was being used as some kind of communal living area. There was also reports from neighbours claiming that Sakurai first moved to the area with a husband, described as a foreigner, but had not been seen for quite some time.

According to Asahi TV, acquaintances of Sakurai’s revealed that she has been using her home to allow people who had run away from home.

Sakurai was reportedly seen by people as one who helped people in difficult times by giving many different people a place to stay and even reports of her helping them find work.

A former restaurant co-worker of Sakurai, who reportedly worked with her until February last year, said the suspect was “skilled at drawing people to her side.”

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