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She Killed Her Friend Then Mailed Her in a Box Labeled “Doll”
The gruesome story of identity theft and murder.
As you get older, life gets busier and more complicated. With work, family, hobbies, and other parts of life taking center stage, friends seem to fade away. Many people lose contact with those they grew up with and friends from school or camp are just passing Instagram photos or Facebook updates. But then once in a while, a person who you haven’t seen or heard from in years reaches out.
And unlike strangers online who might be sexual predators, identity thieves, or even violent criminals out looking for victims, this person is a past friend who you know personally. So it’s easy to let your guard down. Which is exactly what Rika Okada, a nurse in Osaka, did when she agreed to reconnect with her elementary and junior highschool friend Yuri Oishi.
Unfortunately, the meeting with Yuri ended up being her biggest mistake. Not only did Yuri steal Rika’s identity, but she also murdered her and fled the country. Why did Yuri target Rika? How did she kill her? How did she get caught and what happened to her? This is the story of a friend who reached out via social media to find and kill her friend.
Yuri’s Desperation
Yuri was born in Brazil but was of Japanese descent. In the early 1900s after slavery was banned in Brazil, the country needed people to work in the coffee plantations. However, because of poor working conditions and low wages, most Europeans would not come to Brazil. Japanese people in need of economic survival could not go to America or Australia because of laws banning non-whites, so they came to Brazil to work in the plantations.
Yuri’s family returned to Japan from Brazil when she was a child and she lived in the Nishinari Ward of Osaka close to Rika. They went to the same elementary school and junior high school and were friends. But in high school, Yuri decided to move back to Brazil and attend high school there. Japan only allows one citizenship so Yuri had to decide between Japan and Brazil by age 18. During this time in Brazil, she decided to become a Brazilian citizen.
Returning to Japan once again when she was 20 years old, she realized it was hard to find a good…
