Pastry Chef’s Love Ends in a Murder-Suicide

He Stabbed Her 23 Times Then Leaped To His Death.

This is the story of a relationship gone wrong. A couple that not only had a lot in common in terms of age, education, and hobbies but also shared common dreams. Both Asami Noguchi and Hiroyuki Takashi who were coworkers at a candy shop in Tokyo began a relationship in 2016.

Their love for cooking, confectionery, and desserts gave them a common pastime and both enjoyed their trade.

But a combination of mental illness, domestic violence, obsessive behavior, and a broken heart, unfortunately, caused this couple to more than just break up. Hiroyuki was unable to deal with Asami’s rejection and things escalated to the point where Asami had to go to the police.

What happened to Asami and Hiroyuki’s relationship? What led Hiroyuki to ultimately, stalk, threaten, and kill Asami? How did Hiroyuki get to Asami? Could the police have prevented this crime? This is the story of two pastry chefs whose love turned to hate which.

“She always reached out to people in need. She was too kind.”

-father of Asami

The Life Of Asami Noguchi

Yahoo News interviewed Asami’s parents Katsu and Kazumi Noguchi. The couple had Asami as well as two sons. Asumi grew up in a regular but loving household in Tokyo, Japan. She studied ballet from elementary to junior high school, belonged to the photography club in high school, and in college majored in art.

As she grew older, she was also interested in surfing and volunteered as a surfing instructor for kids with disabilities. Once she graduated from university she started working in a candy shop in Tokyo. Since she was a child she had always been interested in baking and sweets so she even visited Spain to learn about baking and confectionery goods around the world.

Until the incident, Asami had been working as a manager at a famous sweet shop in Shibuya and even told her parents she wanted to have her own shop one day.

According to Asahi News, Asami’s social media talked about her love for making sweets, writing, “I find I have a strong sense of art using food rather than a canvas,” and, “sweets have a healing power that makes people smile.” She also talked about her boyfriend Hiroyuki Takashi who shared the love of sweets with her.

Once she started dating Hiroyuki she also told her mother, “he is a gentle soul and he helps me whenever I am in need.” Unfortunately, those sentiments she had in 2016 must have gone from sweet to sour as their relationship and lives would be over by 2020.

Hiroyuki Takahashi

Hiroyuki was born in Osaka, raised in Fukuoka, but moved to Tokyo when his father moved his family to Tokyo for work. Originally, Hiroyuki was interested in becoming a soccer player and entered a high school that excelled in the sport. After moving to Tokyo, he decided to attend university but failed the entrance exams.

Unsure of what to do with his life, he ended working instead. Not much is known about where he worked or what kind of jobs he did until he started working at the same sweet shop in 2016 that Asami worked at. Despite being four years younger than Asami, it was there that they met and became a couple.

Looking through Asami’s Instagram, she would sometimes post about their dates together, celebrating his birthday at a fancy restaurant, Valentine’s Day, and so on. Hiroyuki seemed to be having a good relationship with Asami as well as planning the opening of his own shop which he opened in late 2018. It’s also around this time when Asami’s posts about him stopped.

Was it the pressure of opening his own business that split the two apart? Was Asami not happy with Hiroyuki or was there something about Hiroyuki that made it impossible for their relationship to continue? We may never truly know the real reason why Hiroyuki did what he did, but there were many signs that pointed to them not ending happily.

Splitting Up

What was reported by Japan Today and other news outlets was that both Asami and Hiroyuki met at the candy shop they worked at and started dating in 2016. The reports also mention that Hiroyuki was arrested in August of 2019 for assaulting Asami in May and July of 2019 but Asami didn’t press charges.

Most likely the couple broke up at the end of 2018 as Hiroyuki was busy with his shop opening and Asami was focusing on her work as well.

But as early as 2017 problems were arising when Asami tried to take a break with Hiroyuki. He started sending Asami strange messages such as “I’ll die” or “So much grief” so she even contacted the police in his area because she was afraid he might kill himself. The police asked Hiroyuki’s father to keep an eye on him and supervise his condition.

Yahoo News reported that Asami told her parents about her worries in the relationship. “He was always saying bad things about Asami, her school, and yelling at employees.” When her father told Asami to break up with him, she replied, “There are waves of emotions between us, but I’m the one who understands me best.”

According to the Nogata Police, Hiroyuki had been telling his friends and parents that Asami had been bad-mouthing him so customers were not coming to his store and his business was suffering. He was angry and would never forgive Asami for her betrayal.

As the relationship grew cold, Hiroyuki refused to give up and would often contact Asami even though she didn’t want anything to do with him. In May of 2019, he had an argument and physically assaulted Asami. He would also call her phone, stalk her and leave messages like, “I know where you are!”

After the assaults in May and July, the couple settled out of court and Hiroyuki was made to pay a fine of 200,000 yen or about $2000. Asami was also frightened that Hiroyuki might turn up at her place so she temporarily left her home and stayed with her parents and her younger brother’s homes for a while.

Things seemed to have been settling down and the police were regularly contacting Asami once a month to make sure Hiroyuki had not shown up or contacted her. But in November of 2019, Hiroyuki showed up at the new shop where Asami was the manager. It was the shop of Mr.Goto, a chef that Hiroyuki admired.

Asami contacted the police but because it was not an emergency call, the police couldn’t use the AntiStalking Act. However, the police were able to give Hiroyuki a cautionary verbal warning stating that if he contacted or approached Asami, he would be arrested. Asami also moved back to her place despite police recommending she move.

The verbal warning from the police may have been what Hiroyuki felt was excessive and angered him. Especially since the shop where Asami worked was run by the same owner who both Asami and Hiroyuki respected and used to work for in the past.

Not being able to visit the shop where his favorite chef worked might have been the reason he blamed and hated Asami and what led him to decide to kill her.

The Crime

According to the Tokyo Reporter, on August 30, 2020, police found security camera footage showing Hiroyuki approaching Asami’s apartment building in Nakano after 3 am and then leaving around 4 am. Before going to Asami’s place, Hiroyuki rented a car several days before.

Parking his car near Asami’s residence, Hiroyuki took with him two knives, a gas burner that was used to burn glass, and used a step ladder to climb to Asami’s second-floor balcony. He found the window unlocked and so left the gas burner in the balcony and climbed into her apartment.

Reuters reported Hiroyuki used the kitchen knives he brought to attack Asami stabbing her a total of 23 times in her back, head, neck, face, and arms. The medical reports showed there had been defensive wounds on her body when she tried to fight back. An autopsy showed that she died from suffocation and blood loss as the knife had punctured her lungs.

She was found by her younger brother at 10 am when he came to check on her. Her brother and Asami’s parents had seen an Instagram post from Hiroyuki that sounded like a suicide note so they were worried about Asami.

When her younger brother arrived, he found Asami on the floor of her apartment covered in blood. Originally, he thought Asami might be have been so distraught by Hiroyuki’s suicidal post that she might have commit suicide herself. He quickly called the police and she was taken to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. Asami’s parents and brother were told that her death was not a suicide but a murder.

But before police found Asami, they first found Hiroyuki two kilometers or just over a mile away from Asami’s apartment. Reports from livedoor.com said he had jumped off the 7th floor of his parent’s apartment building at around 6 am and was declared dead at the scene.

Japan Today wrote, “The rental car was left parked outside the apartment building from where he jumped. A bloodied knife was found in the car.” Later, tests showed that the clothes of Hiroyuki had traces of Asami’s blood on them. Bloodied gloves left by Hiroyuki were also found in the kitchen of Asami’s apartment.

This was Hiroyuki’s final message (roughly translated) on his Instagram before taking Asami’s life, then his own:

Notice of closure. As of today, the shop will be closed due to the owner’s decision. There were various reasons, but how should I thank the people who have supported me so far?

I was harassed by my ex-girlfriend Asami Noguchi, when I went into my favorite chef’s shop, where he used his name to bring about various influences. I can’t forgive her because of my indignation, and I think it’s because I couldn’t go to my favorite shop.

The daily life of our pastry chef circle is very small, and my life feels suffocated just by being deprived of that close-knit group.

For the past year, I have been really worried, struggling, and unable to sleep. I’m relieved now that I finished without causing any inconvenience to other people. For those who have turned into someone who does something that is resentful, it will always affect them.

Therefore, I definitely apologize first and recommend that you avoid any misunderstandings. To those who have a grudge, I thought that I would die because I thought it would be absolutely refreshing, but when I looked back, I felt something like this. Let me just say thank you in the end. I can’t help being abused by someone and dying, but I have no regrets in my life. It is a decision based on that. Thank you. Thanks so much. I wanted to go back to my hometown Hirao.

Asahi News reported that after the incident, though Hiroyuki was dead, he was sent documents on suspicion of murder and breaking and entering into Asami’s home. Further investigation also showed that Hiroyuki was looking on the web for a method to gently break glass using fire before the incident, so he might have brought the burner for that purpose before finding the window unlocked.

Unfortunately with both Asami and Hiroyuki gone, police, family, and friends were only able to piece together the crime, the motive, and the events that led up to the incident through social media posts, police reports, and recollections from those who knew them.

And though Asami’s killer was identified and the family was able to understand what went on, it doesn’t change the fact that someone who was frustrated, angry, mentally ill, and felt his world was over, decided to take another life along with his own.

And though we know through Hiroyuki’s last post that he blamed Asami for his business failure or ostracism from the pastry chef circle he wanted to be a part of, there must have been a lot more trouble going on in his mind if he was willing to kill and die for it.

Maybe Asami could have been more proactive with the police and not forgiven Hiroyuki so quickly for his assault and stalking. Maybe her parents could have intervened and forced her to break up with Hiroyuki sooner. Maybe Hiroyuki’s father who had been responsible for supervising him could have seen some warning signs that his son needed help. Maybe the chefs, staff, and friends of Asami and Hiroyuki could have provided support or recommended getting help.

But ultimately, we will never know what truly led Hiroyuki to destroy his world and Asami’s and if anyone could have stopped it. All we know is a nice, normal, cute pastry chef couple spiraled into a violent, shocking, and fatal end.

If you liked this article, please check out more stories of true crime in Japan: