Savage 'rapeman' trapped in sadistic corner


A penchant for perversion proved to be the clincher in the arrest of a fiend who claims to have raped over 100 young women in and around Osaka over the past three years, according to Shukan Shincho (7/1).

Hidenobu Kuwada was viewed as one of the brightest upper echelon prospects at Kashima Corp., a general contractor best known for its huge building projects centered on the Kansai area.

At 36, Kuwada had already entered the company's middle-management ranks and the married father of a 3-year-old boy was penciled in for bigger things as one of the company's rising elite.

Despite being in the construction business, Kuwada wasn't the type to get his hands dirty at work. Instead, he barked out orders carried out by sub-contractors.

His work was hardly physically demanding. But, that was only his day job. At nights, Kuwada, police say, turned into a rapist, burning off all the energy he had built up during the day.

"From about May three years ago, we started to receive an inordinately large number of reports of rapes of young women in the northern part of Osaka. Most of the victims were women from their teens to 30s, living alone in one-room apartments in condominiums with security locks at the main entrance," an investigation source tells Shukan Shincho. "The rapist would break into some apartments while wearing pantyhose over his head. But he would gradually remove his garments and was usually naked by the time he had finished. Most of the time, he subjected his victims to ordeals lasting around four hours. Kuwada's fingerprints were found all over the place and one security camera captured him on film."

Despite all the evidence, it took some time for Kuwada, who had never previously given authorities an inkling of trouble, to fall under suspicion.

Over 70 women in northern Osaka reported being raped during the three-year period, nearly all attacked in identical fashion.

Until recently, police were no closer to catching the elusive rapist than they had been since he first struck. It was then that investigators finally got a break, courtesy, it seems, of Kuwada's proclivity for a bit of rough stuff in the sack.

"In about the middle of May, this cop came around to us with a few photos of this guy and asked if anybody had seen him hanging around Juso," a brothel bouncer tells Shukan Shincho.

Juso is a red-light district in northern Osaka known for its plethora of sex business catering to all manner of tastes imaginable. Detectives approached brothels in connection with the rape of a sex worker living in Juso, but also had their eyes on the district's S&M bars. It didn't take long before they turned that eye in Kuwada's direction.

"Kuwada was no ordinary rapist. He usually tied up his victims, and sometimes, he forced vibrators or vegetables into their private parts. There were even times when Kuwada forced his victims to drink his urine. He was a perverted sadist," the police investigation source says. "Juso is located right in the center of the region where the rapes were occurring. We thought that anybody with sadistic sexual tendencies would eventually end up in one of Juso's S&M clubs."

On the night of June 19, Kuwada turned up at just such a joint, paying for 50 minutes of bondage and domination. Little did he know, however, employees had already contacted the police to alert them of his presence. While Kuwada was engaged in sadistic sex acts, officers stormed in and arrested him.

"Kuwada's fingerprints match those found at crime scenes and DNA tests showed Kuwada produced the semen found in the attacks," the police source tells Shukan Shincho. "Kuwada initially denied the allegations, but a raid on his home turned up a 'Rape Record,' in which he had detailed sex attacks on over 100 women. He finally admitted it, saying that he was forced into rape because his wife had refused to have sex with him."