The Unsolved Case of Mai Sato: Japanese Festival Mystery

Hey KyotoRobato, just wanted to say thank you for covering cases that some of us in a western audience would probably not be familiar with. With that being said, please make sure that you're taking care of yourself (as in, maybe covering these kinds of cases can take a toll on you).

Really liking the increased narration speed! I used to have to speed your videos up, but now it's plenty fast and I watch at normal speed.

The position she was found in implies two people threw her in there.

Japanese law enforcement is abysmal

So sad😢such a beautiful young woman 🙏

It's either a creep that choose her randomly one day or her dad who sounds like a issue. I would also say her dad due to he seems not so caring about the situation and he seems like It's something that is normal no serious or sad reaction or anything that seems like they are interested. I enjoy mystery case stories like this. Cool video. ^_^

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It was her dad.

What's your opinion on big streamers like xqc reacting to your content live? are you ok with it?

It was someone she knew that lived in the area that owned a large vehicle. No defensive wounds meant she went willingly to the home of the acquaintance. The missing shoes indicate that she removed her shoes before entering the home of the acquaintance. It’s likely she was murdered indoors as her socks were clean, belongings and nails removed. Taking the time to remove nails outside would be too risky. Normally fake nails are glued on and take a bit of effort to remove. Bruised arms normally indicate restraint. It is likely more than one person involved. Sounds like someone held her down while the other person strangled her.

why nobody knows who she was talking on the phone with? Does Japan cant ask for phone records? It just strikes me as odd that no one seems to know and that police don't really have any new information after all those years

Great video as always very sad story

It's 2023 now, technology is a lot better so I hope the police can investigate this further, who knows if there is some DNA on and around the body

Wow this is such a sad case and so many unanswered questions.
Was she sexually assaulted? If she was, this would give us more information about the perpetrator.
More info on the autopsy is needed. If she was rendered unconscious before being forced into a car for example, this would leave a physical mark and show up in the medical examination.
If however no physical assaults were presented, it could suggest that the victim may have willingly interacted with the assailant.
The COD is also telling. She was strangled, and most likely by a male assailant because female killers tend to rely on less labour intensive methods of murder.
The way her body was just dumped shows a total lack of remorse which means they had a hatred toward her either as an acquaintance or stranger.
Perhaps Mai turned down a man trying to pick her up, and this triggered him to do commit a heinous crime?
What's strange is that the killer seems to have done an excellent job discarding of the victim's belongings and clothes in an unknown location or the more likely possibility, kept the victims belongings/items of clothing.
Its one thing to murder someone and dump them but to essentially strip them of their belongings requires a specific train of thought and motive. I have a hard time believing this was a forensic countermeasure.
If this is the work of a serial killer, the snatching of belongings and post mortem addition of socks could be a signature of sort.
As for the socks, there are a couple of possibilities here - the socks could have been put on postmortem or there was a tag team, 2 people strong enough to lift a body and place down the body making sure the feet never touched the ground enroute the dumpsite.

Although going out of one's way specifically just to keep socks clean seems rather illogical.
i don't know how reliable the account of the lady in red is but if its true, it could explain a lady x man duo where the lady could act as the lure and conjure up some kind of rouse, which could be why there was no sign of a struggle since women are more trusting around other women.

can you make a documentary about the unsolved murder of ai hoshino?

Taxi driver?

I think it may have been done by a person who disliked the fact Ms. Satos mother choose to be with a foreigner versus either him/she or Japanese person in general. I think that this person wasn’t alone in his/her thoughts. The other person or persons either knew what was going to happen to the letter and likely participated in wither a direct or indirect way.

I also believe that’s likely the reason why the father had to live elsewhere and had to plan activities outside certain individuals or invite trouble for his S/O and their child.

This is heartbreaking. I was stationed in Japan a year after this happened. Japanese phones were sort of ahead of their time, at least compared to phones we had in the US back then. Had this happened a year or 2 later, she would have had a phone with GPS and that possibly could have changed things. By 2004-05, it was common to have a browser and GPS on a regular flip phone. I dont remember hearing about this. All the tragic case I heard about of course were marines on okinawa killing a young girl and every US base was locked down for some time. There were sadly a few like this and it was infuriating. I guess because of this, I never had room in my mind for disappearances or murders done by civilians. I can see how someone would go missing at these festivals though, they can be somewhat wild and busy.

This is probably just my own theory but I think that maybe somebody was horrible intentions saw her at the festival and or even though she didn't have any enemies like we know maybe somebody from school was jealous of her and decided to follow her to the festival and when they saw her talking at the stand and working there with the 17 year old girl they waited for her to leave and then while she was distracted they probably snuck up behind her and killed her but I don't know or maybe some Disturbed individual in their twenties 20s saw innocent person and wanted to hurt them for no reason

Phone records don't exist in Japan or something?