Needle-wielding ex-madam Shiori Suzuki faces court for attempted murder of hubby
Ex-brothel madam Shiori Suzuki didn't mind selling herself off daily, but when her husband sought a nightly reaffirmation of their connubial love, she felt driven to do whatever it took to stop him, according to Shukan Shincho.
That "anything" included pumping her considerably older husband full of insulin and putting him into a coma from which he has still yet to emerge, according to prosecutors at the opening of Suzuki's trial for attempted murder, which opened at the Tokyo District Court earlier this month.
Suzuki, 34, is rumored to have spent as much as 10 million yen on cosmetic surgery to just about every major part of her body and face.
In March this year, her post-surgery photos, taken from her brothel's website, were pasted all through the Japanese tabloid media following her arrest and indictment for trying to kill her husband, Shigeru, with a potentially lethal injection of insulin.
Suzuki seems to have a peculiar talent for bringing hurt and pain to those around her. In November last year, her in-laws' bodies were found in the charred remains of a fire that gutted their home in a case that officially remains unsolved.
Chinese-born Suzuki left little doubt where she stood at the opening of her trial.
"She came in wearing a white shirt and black trousers that clung to the contours of her body. Her straight, dyed brown hair reached down almost to the small of her back and she looked every bit as pretty as the media said she had been," a court beat reporter tells Shukan Shincho. "She stumbled along in her broken Japanese, but the high-pitched voice she used was the type that really turns guys on."
Prosecutors read out the charges against Suzuki, who was asked if they were correct. She instantly refuted them.
"I injected him, but I didn't mean to kill him," Shukan Shincho quotes the suspect as telling the court.
But Suzuki also had plenty more to say.
"She started going on about how she and the woman accused of taking a 5 million yen payment to get the insulin for the attack on her husband had no intention of killing him. When the judge asked her why she injected her husband with insulin if she wasn't trying to kill him, the former brothel madam raised some chuckles among the court gallery," the hack says. "She said that he was at her every night for sex and she couldn't handle it any more and wanted to divorce him. But she feared losing custody over their son if her husband was still healthy, so she gave him the huge dose of insulin to try and weaken him a bit."
Some felt it was an ironic stance for a brothel madam to take. The opening day of the hearing saw both the prosecution and defense present their arguments and the prosecution questioned its first witness, a doctor called on to explain the effects of insulin on the body.
"She kept leering at the press gallery all the time, but also showed a softer side by giving a slight bow to the presiding judge, witness and legal interns in the courtroom," the reporter tells Shukan Shincho. "Those bows, however, made her look like she was begging for help." (By Ryann Connell)