A 57-year-old woman was recently discovered on the streets of Kobe, Japan sporting bruises.

When she was questioned by the police, the woman, Yumiko Hosaka, said she had escaped from her family home, where she had been confined for about three months in a closet.

On Jun. 22, authorities subsequently arrested her children, Daichi Hosaka, 32, Saki Hosaka, 34, and twins Tomomi Hosaka and Asaka Hosaka, 30, for allegedly hitting their mother with a steel pipe, reported The Japan Times.

Further investigations into the case uncovered a much more sinister story.

Body in suitcase

Yumiko lived with her four children and grandson in an apartment in the city’s Nishi Ward.

During investigations in June 2023, her daughter Saki led police to a grassy area near their house, where they found the body of her six-year-old son Nao Hosaka in a suitcase, The Japan Times reported.

An autopsy revealed that the boy likely died on Jun. 19.

Security footage showed Saki, Daichi, Tomomi, and Asaka heading out with a suitcase during that time.

Signs of abuse

The circumstances surrounding Nao's tragic death grew clearer when the police noted that Nao's body bore the marks of beatings, predominantly on his back, The Asahi Shimbun reported.

Police seized stick-like objects from the family home, suspecting that Nao had been physically abused with a metal pipe and died from traumatic shock.

They deemed that the suspects had either an intent to kill or an “unintentional intent” to let the boy die.

The four siblings were arrested again on Jul. 13 and charged with Nao's murder on Jul. 23.

Home was not a safe place

Life at the family home appeared to have taken a turn for the worse when Daichi, Yumiko's eldest child and Nao's uncle, moved in in late 2022.

Nao was reportedly missing from day care since February, The Japan Times reported.

In April, day care staff found multiple bruises on his shoulder and buttocks.

Come May, neighbours witnessed Nao crying and yelling from the balcony: “Help, I can’t go inside.”

When municipal officials visited the home after a report was made, the boy's mother and grandmother denied knowledge of the origins of his bruises.

The bruises disappeared by the time officials paid a second visit to the house on May 1.

This time, Saki had implored them to take the child in temporarily as she found it hard to raise him, but her request was countered by Yumiko who insisted that they could handle Nao themselves.

Jun Saimura, a professor emeritus on child welfare at the Tokyo University of Communication told The Japan Times that the municipality should have done more to help when asked to take in Nao.

Top images via The Asahi Shimbun