Passion and Murder: The Story of Sada Abe and Kichizo Ishida

A breathtaking passion, to make the couple lock themselves in a room without wanting to leave. This was the relationship between Sada Abe and Kichizo Ishida in 1936 in Tokyo. But what was supposed to be a swift afternoon of love in a hotel turned into a deadly erotic tale for Ishida in May of that year. The afternoon turned into night, the night multiplied into four days in which they were involved without worrying about Ishida's wife - to whom he should return, which never happened.

They could not untie themselves and did not put their sex aside even with the presence of hotel maids, who entered the room to bring tea. What Ishida didn't know was that all that passion would turn into her own murder.

The two met two months before the murder

The couple's passionate fire lit like an erupting volcano, in a hurry and urgency, after all, Ishida and Abe had met only two months earlier when she was hired to work as a waitress at his restaurant. The girl had been forced by her parents to work as a geisha - sex work - as a way of punishing her for having had several lovers as a teenager.

Sada Abe - Photo: Wikimedia Commons

She did not fit into a geisha's organization, "rules" and schedules, and began working as a licensed government prostitute. After robbing clients, she went to work in an illegal Tokyo brothel, but after he was raided by police, she became the paid mistress of one of the brothel owner's friends.

She left prostitution because she was mistreated and started working at a restaurant, Ishida's restaurant, which soon showed interest in Abe. The feeling was reciprocal and quick, and it wasn't long before she fell completely in love with the "boss."

After an extended stay in a hotel with her, Ishida returned to her wife and made Abe mad with jealousy. Intoxicated, she even threatened him with a knife. More intrigued than afraid of the threat materializing, they met again, but this time with the presence of the melee weapon, which worked like an erotic pepper in the relationship.

Hotel where Ishida was murdered - Photo: Wikimedia Commons

From the erotic knife to the murder

The knife has become an extra element in Ishida and Abe's relationship. On a sexual encounter, she put the point of the knife in his genitals and threatened to cut them if he returned to his wife once again. He, unaware that his murder was approaching, seemed to enjoy the danger and even asked her to suffocate him during sex.

In one of the meetings, Ishida was erotically suffocated for two hours and, feeling the pains, he joked that next time Abe should strangle him to death because stopping made him feel so much pain.

Though he understood the joke, the thought of strangling his lover to death remained in his mind. But not for long. Two days later, Abe strangled Ishida in his sleep and did not stop until he killed him, as he had requested. She later told the police that she felt comfortable, as if she had taken a burden off her shoulders after committing the murder of her lover.

Brothel where Sada Abe worked still exists in Tokyo - Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Abe even used the same knife they "played" with during sex to cut Ishida's genitals. She wrapped them in paper and, with his blood, wrote, "We, Sada and Ishida, are alone" on his thigh. In addition, he engraved his name on his arm, also with the knife, and left the hotel with his lover's penis.

Persecution and arrest of Sada Abe after the murder

It was not long before Ishida's body was found with the recorded message. Such a story would not take long to reach the press either, and after the case exploded, reports that Abe would have been seen came from all over the country.

While the turmoil was underway, Abe acted calmly: shopping, watching movies in the cinema without worry. She stayed in a fake-named hotel and started writing farewell letters because she planned to kill herself.

But her erotic imagination didn't leave her alone, and Abe wanted to have sex with his lover once again. She unwrapped Ishida's cock, put it in her mouth and tried to put it inside herself several times. Unable to do so, he gave up. "I wanted the part of him that brought me the most vivid memories, " he said.

Sada Abe was arrested after faking a hotel stay - Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The investigation reached Abe, who opened her bedroom door, admitted her identity, handed over her genitals as evidence, and responded when asked why she had killed her lover. “I loved him so much that I wanted him just for me. But since we were not husband and wife, so long as he lived, he could be embraced by other women. I knew that if I killed him, no other woman could touch him again, so I killed him, ”he said.

Convicted, she asked to be executed, but the sentence was six years in prison that turned into just five. Free, Abe gave interviews, wrote an autobiography, a film was made telling her story and that of her lover's murder, and finally she returned to work as a waitress for another 20 years. In 1970 she disappeared and since then no one knows what happened to Sada Abe, the woman who made a deadly erotic tale come true.