Bodies of Missing Two Chinese Sisters Found in Suitcases in Japan

July 19, 2017

A week after two Chinese sisters were declared missing in Japan, their bodies were found partially decomposed in two separate pieces of luggage in a mountain forest near Tokyo.

Japanese authorities first informed the Chinese Embassy on July 11th that Chen Baolan, 25, and Chen Baozhen, 22, disappeared from their apartment in Yokohama on June 6th.

The Chinese officials were then notified last Friday that the bodies of the missing women had been found in Hadano late Thursday night. The autopsy report revealed both women died from strangulation.

A married man in his thirties has been arrested in connection to the crime, the Japanese authorities revealed. He was reportedly found to be having an affair with one of the sisters.

According to Japan Times, the suspect was seen on security camera footage entering the women’s apartment in Naka Ward, Nagoya on July 6. He was also seen leaving the following day carrying bags.

In an interview with Fuzhou Evening News on Saturday (via China Daily) the victims’ father, surnamed Chen, said the women had been living in Japan for years.

Chen said that he was able to communicate with his daughters via a WeChat video call the day before they disappeared. The women told him that they had just returned from a trip to Yokohama with friends. He told them he had sent them some food via mail.

“Now there’s nobody there to sign for the parcel. My girls will never have the opportunity to taste hometown food sent by parents,” Chen was quoted as saying.

The news of the shocking crime sent the Chinese social media abuzz with discussions, with many netizens commenting that Japan isn’t as safe as it appears to be.

Shanghaiist reports that a common sentiment among netizens was that while Japan may seem safe from the outside, the brutal murder of the sisters had revealed “its true colors” as a country full of “deviants”.

Similar cases of Chinese people falling victim to crimes abroad have always gained such attention on local social media, according to What’s On Weibo. The murder of Michelle Leng in Sydney last year and the recent disappearance of Yingying Zhang, a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois, have both generated massive uproar in the online community.

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