Sada Abe - "Abe Sada Incident"

"Abe Sada Incident"

Ishida and Abe returned to Ogu, where they remained until his death. During their love-making this time, Abe put the knife to the base of Ishida's penis, and said she would make sure he would never play around with another woman. Ishida laughed at this. Two nights into this bout of sex, Abe began choking Ishida, and he told her to continue, saying that this increased his pleasure. She had him do it to her as well. On the evening of May 16, 1936, Abe used her obi sash to cut off Ishida's breathing during orgasm, and they both enjoyed it. They repeated this for two more hours. Once Abe stopped the strangulation, Ishida's face became distorted, and would not return to its normal appearance. Ishida took 30 tablets of a sedative called Calmotin to try to soothe his pain. According to Abe, as Ishida started to doze, he told her, "You'll put the cord around my neck and squeeze it again while I'm sleeping, won't you... If you start to strangle me, don't stop, because it is so painful afterward." Abe commented that she wondered if he had wanted her to kill him, but on reflection decided he must have been joking.

About 2 a.m. on the morning of May 18, 1936, as Ishida was asleep, Abe wrapped her sash twice around his neck and strangled him to death. She later told police, "After I had killed Ishida I felt totally at ease, as though a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and I felt a sense of clarity." After lying with Ishida's body for a few hours, she next severed his genitalia with the kitchen knife, wrapped them in a magazine cover, and kept them until her arrest three days later. With the blood she wrote Sada, Kichi Futari-kiri ("Sada, Kichi together") on Ishida's left thigh, and on a bed sheet. She then carved 定 ("Sada", the character for her name) into his left arm. After putting on Ishida's underwear, she left the inn at about 8 a.m., telling the staff not to disturb Ishida. When asked why she had severed Ishida's genitalia, Abe replied, "Because I couldn't take his head or body with me. I wanted to take the part of him that brought back to me the most vivid memories."

After leaving the inn, Abe met Goro Omiya. She repeatedly apologized to him, but Omiya, unaware of the murder, assumed that she was apologizing for having taken another lover. In actuality, Abe's apologies were for the damage to his political career that she knew his association with her was bound to cause. On May 19, 1936, the newspapers picked up the story. Omiya's career was ruined, and Abe's life was under intense public scrutiny from that point onwards.