Japan is known for a lot of things, but spacious apartments isn’t one of them.  Most people in Japan live in very close quarters with their neighbors, so I would imagine that there isn’t a lot of secrecy when it comes to what your friends and neighbors are up to, even if it’s in a ultra-polite society like Japan.  You’d think that keeping a teenager captive for two years would be next to impossible, but that’s not true.  A 15-year-old girl escaped from her kidnapper’s apartment after he failed to lock the door during a shopping trip.

The kidnapper, 23-year-old Kabu Terauchi, kidnapped the girl when she was 13.  The story made huge news in Japan at the time, but over the two years, things settled down.  Meanwhile, Terauchi moved from his apartment in Chiba near his university to another apartment in downtown Tokyo.  You’d think that he’d keep the girl chained up in the basement or a closet or something, but that’s not the case.  She stayed in his apartment under close watch, but they also left the apartment to travel, and clearly they moved at least once, so I wonder why she didn’t yell for help on one of those trips.

Then again, if Jeremy London can get kidnapped for hours and forced to do drugs, anything is possible.

Image via Time

Tags: japan, kidnapping, unusual news, unusual kidnappings, teen held captive for 2 years, 15-year-old held by kidnapper for 2 years, Kabu Terauchi, Chiba, Tokyo, Japan, 15 year old held captive for 2 years, 15 year old girl escapes kidnapper, unusual crimes, law and order

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]