Japan bakery

Japan bakery

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This is one of Japan's most bizarre disappearance cases. A high school girl vanished in broad daylight on her way to her part-time job, and the mystery remains unsolved even 24 years later. Today, we'll talk about the "Muroran High School Girl Disappearance Case" in Japan.

On the evening of March 6, 2001, Japanese police received a report that a 16-year-old high school girl had suddenly disappeared on her way to her part-time job. Her name was Chida Mami, and she lived in Muroran City, Hokkaido, Japan, attending the local Muroran Sakae High School. She was not only academically excellent but also very beautiful and had a cheerful personality.

Chida worked part-time at a bakery. It was a branch store, very close to her home, but going from school would be a detour and time-consuming, so she applied to transfer to a different store. The head office then prepared to transfer her to the main store, located between her school and home. However, because the main store sold coffee, she needed to go to the main store to learn coffee-making techniques before the official transfer.

March 6, 2001, was a Tuesday. It was normally a school day, but because high school entrance exams were being held that day, all the city's high schools were being used as exam venues, so students had the day off. Chida decided to take this opportunity to learn how to make coffee at the main store.

At 11:30 AM, Chida called the bakery and said she would be at the main store at 1:30 PM to learn how to make coffee. At 12:30 PM, after finishing lunch, Chida walked to the Shiratoridai bus stop near her home and took a bus to the main store. At 12:56 PM, the bus arrived at the Higashidori bus stop near the main store. Chida was supposed to get off there, as it was only 20 meters from the bakery. However, Chida didn't get off there. Instead, she rode for four more stops and got off at the "Higashimachi 2-chome" stop at 1:03 PM, entering a shopping mall.

She didn't do anything unusual in the mall; the security cameras in the cosmetics section even captured her. She was wearing a khaki jacket and dark jeans, seemingly intending to buy something. Strangely, she seemed in no hurry at all, even though the agreed time was 1:30.

At 1:30, Chida met two classmates at the mall entrance, said goodbye, and then they parted ways. She then disappeared. The bakery owner, seeing that she hadn't appeared by 1:30, asked his staff to contact Chida and left. The staff called Chida, but there was no answer.

By evening, Chida's parents, seeing that their daughter hadn't returned home, called her several times without success. This worried them, as Chida usually answered their calls, even when she was busy. They rushed to the bakery to inquire, but the bakery said Chida hadn't been there that afternoon. Chida's parents called again, but the phone was switched off.

The distraught parents immediately called the police. The police arrived at the bakery to investigate, as a grown woman had simply disappeared in a busy area. Initially, the police didn't think much of it, as it's normal for children to go out and play during holidays. So that evening, the police and Chida's parents only distributed 4,000 missing person posters around the bakery, which obviously had no effect.

When Chida was still nowhere to be found the next day, the police intensified their investigation. The police investigated the bus company, which provided a clue: at 1:31 PM on March 6th, a bus stopped at the "Higashimachi 2-chome" station, the stop right in front of the shopping mall, heading towards the bakery. Three people boarded at this stop, one of whom used a student ticket; this student ticket holder was very likely Chida. The bus arrived at Higashidori station in front of the bakery at 1:41 PM, where 12 passengers got off. The police interviewed some of the passengers and the driver who were on the bus at the time, asking if they had seen Chida, but they all said they didn't remember her, and the lead ended there.

If Chida got off at Higashidori station, the distance from Higashidori station to the bakery is only a one-minute walk. In broad daylight, could she have been murdered in a minute?

To find more clues, the police retrieved Chida's phone call records. The records showed that at 1:41 PM and 1:46 PM on March 6th, Chida received two calls from a male classmate named "Asou" from the same school. He was reportedly Chida's boyfriend.

According to her boyfriend's testimony, at 1:41 PM he called to ask where she was. Chida said she was in the city center and then hung up. He vaguely remembered that the call was noisy, clearly outdoors. Furthermore, according to the call forwarding signal record, the signal was from the nearest relay station to the bakery, indicating that Chida was very close to the bakery at the time.

Four minutes later, at 1:46 PM, her boyfriend called again. Chida said she was busy and would call him back later, then hung up. Her boyfriend noticed that this call was quiet, as if it were indoors. This was Chida's last contact with the outside world.

If these clues are combined, the person who boarded the train with a student ticket was indeed Chida. To recap: She left home by bus at 12:30 PM, got off at the mall at 1:03 PM, shopped for almost half an hour, then boarded another bus at 1:31 PM and got off at Higashidori Station next to the bakery at 1:41 PM. She received a call from her boyfriend just one minute after getting off the bus. The key is what happened in those next four minutes. She went from outdoors to indoors, and wasn't inside the bakery, but it's certain she couldn't have gone far in four minutes; she was near the bakery.

The bakery owner naturally became a suspect. At 1:30 PM on the day of the incident, the bakery owner instructed two employees before leaving. Such a coincidence inevitably aroused suspicion.

The police found him, questioned him, and searched him. The owner explained that because Chida was late and didn't show up, and because he wasn't feeling well that day, he went home to sleep. He stated that his parents could testify for him. While his family's testimony couldn't definitively prove his alibi, there was also no evidence to prove the owner was the perpetrator. However, this owner didn't have a good reputation. According to a female employee at the bakery, the owner often stared at them with lecherous eyes. Since Chida was already attractive, he had even made suggestive comments about her skirt. Because he was the prime suspect, police placed him under 24-hour surveillance for three days, but he continued to work at the bakery and go home as usual, showing no signs of anything amiss.

Another suspect was the boyfriend who called Chida. Police investigated Chida's friends, but none of them knew of this boyfriend. Strangely, the timing of his calls was also very coincidental; Chida disappeared after receiving two calls from him. Furthermore, since he had already called at 1:41 PM, why would he call again four minutes later? If he knew Chida was going to the shop to learn how to make coffee, he shouldn't have bothered her with those calls. This is also suspicious.

Besides the bakery owner and Chida's boyfriend, there is another "mysterious suspect." Chida had previously complained to friends that she had been followed near her home. Remember when Chida got off the train at 1:41 PM? A total of 12 passengers disembarked, and the police located 8 of them, but the remaining 3 mysterious individuals remained elusive. However, this possibility is highly unlikely, as the distance from Higashidori Station to the bakery is only 20 meters, a busy area where it's almost improbable that a crime would have occurred. If a crime had actually happened, there would certainly be eyewitnesses, making this inference improbable as well.

It's worth noting that Chida's behavior was also strange. She arranged to meet the bakery at 1:30 PM, but between 1:00 and 1:30 PM, she leisurely strolled through the mall, showing no signs of urgency, making her intentions difficult to understand.

The police investigated for years but still lacked sufficient evidence to identify the perpetrator. The bakery owner remained the prime suspect. Later, a private investigator investigated the case and discovered a crucial clue: the bakery owner possessed a collection of pornographic DVDs featuring high school girls, and they also discovered six rental apartments upstairs from the bakery, all belonging to the owner. At the time, four rooms were rented, and two were vacant. While it's uncertain whether Chida was in one of those rooms, if the police had investigated the case rigorously from the beginning, discovered these suspicious points, and opened those two empty doors, perhaps Chida wouldn't still be missing today.

Now, 24 years later, Japanese police issued a appeal for information last year, seeking clues from the public and using technology to reconstruct Chida's current appearance. The Japanese public hopes she is still alive, but 24 years have passed, and the already scarce clues have only distanced them further from the truth of the matter.