Girls' Bar Manager, Employee Stabbed to Death in Shizuoka

   Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Pref., July 6 (Jiji Press)--Two women working at a girls' bar, where female staff serve drinks, were stabbed by a male customer in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, in the early hours of Sunday.
   The two--the bar manager, Tomoka Takeuchi, 27, and an employee, Rin Ito, 26--were later confirmed dead at a hospital. The cause of death is believed to be hemorrhagic shock.
   The Shizuoka prefectural police arrested the attacker, Ichiro Yamashita, 41, an unemployed resident of the city of Fukuroi, Shizuoka, on the spot on suspicion of attempted murder. He has admitted to the charges.
   The police plan to upgrade the charges to murder as they investigate further details.
   According to the police, Yamashita had visited the bar several times before the incident. On the day of the attack, he entered the bar with Ito, holding a knife in each hand. He immediately stabbed Takeuchi and Ito multiple times in the back and other parts of their bodies. There were five or six other people in the store at the time, but none of them were injured.

(2025/07/07-00:20)