She Allegedly Killed Her Millionaire Husband and His Dog Too

What we know so far about the death of the “Don Juan of Japan”.

The death of Kosuke Nozaki, a 77-year-old millionaire who called himself the “Don Juan of Japan,” in 2018 originally had been listed as dying of natural causes. However, after an autopsy, it was revealed that he had a lethal dose of illegal stimulant in his system that caused his death.

Three years later on April 28, 2021, Kosuke’s 25-year-old wife Saki Sudo was finally arrested for his murder. Currently, under investigation, the self-proclaimed model who married Kosuke just three months before his death has been under suspicion for years.

This is the story of Kosuke Nozaki, his life and rise to fame as well as his introduction and marriage to Saki Sudo who was only 21 when they first met. How did they meet? How much was Kosuke worth? Why did Saki allegedly decide to kill her new husband? Why did the police decide to arrest her?

The Don Juan of Japan

“The reason I make money is to date attractive women,”

Kosuke Nozaki was a self-made millionaire who was pretty much unknown to the people of Japan until 2016 when he published his autobiography, Don Juan of Kishu: The Man Who Gave 3 Billion Yen to 4,000 Beautiful Women. Kishu refers to the area of Japan he is from in Wakayama Japan.

Growing up in Wakayama, Kosuke was born to a poor family but slowly started accumulating wealth once he got out of school. He was reported as being a door-to-door salesman that would sell items such as condoms, liquor, and metal scrap. As he accumulated money, he also started a money-lending business in Tokyo.

As Kosuke pushed himself to accumulate wealth, he also expanded into real estate and became the president of a liquor sales company. Kyodo News reported that a neighbor of Kosuke often saw him “deliver advertisements in Tokyo’s Nagatacho area before he succeeded in business and did not have many local friends.”

As a millionaire who could buy mansions, take private jets, travel the world, purchase sports cars and yachts, Kosuke could get anything he wanted. What he wanted was young, beautiful women.

In his best-selling autobiography, he told of spending 300 billion yen (about $27 million) on 4,000 women. He used his money and power to purchase the attention and time of women. In his book, he wrote,

“When I see a woman who is my type, meaning tall and voluptuous, I tell her ‘Beautiful aura, beautiful elegance, beautiful body. I want to go out with you and have sex with you…I’ll give you 400,000 yen if you agree.’ Some people may frown at my sense (of relationships), but this is exactly why I have been working in various occupations and earning money. Everybody has a different dream. I don’t feel guilty about anything,”

He couldn’t be any clearer when in the book he explains, “‘I have no interest in cars or houses. Instead, I have a boundless desire to have sex with beautiful women.” The book also contained chapters on staying fit and healthy as well as tips on how to seduce college girls or flight attendants.

Kosuke had been married and divorced twice and had no children. He only had a miniature dachshund named Eve as a pet. His bachelor lifestyle gained him a lot of attention after he published his autobiography. He originally decided to publish it because, after his conquest of 4000 women, one of the women he was dating stole from him.

A 27-year-old woman Kosuke was dating stole 60 million yen (about $550, 000) worth of cash and jewelry from his home in 2016. She was arrested but Kosuke decided not the press charges and the case was dropped. But the case gained widespread attention across Japan after Kosuke in an interview told reporters, “60 million yen is like toilet paper for me.”

It was rumored that Kosuke originally printed business cards and would hit on hot, young women and attempt to date them. However, the rate of callbacks was not satisfactory so he decided to add a 10,000 yen bill ($100) to the card as an incentive for the girls to call back. In 2017, once again someone attempted to steal from him as well.

Then in the fall of 2017 Kosuke at age 77, met a 21-year-old woman named Saki Sudo at Tokyo Haneda Airport. In his second memoir he released in 2018, he tells of how he was enraptured by her and pretended to fall down. Saki then helped him up and they began chatting. This led to a relationship that eventually led to a marriage in February of 2018.

Despite being 55 years younger than him, Kosuke believed that Saki was not marrying him for his money, but for love. In a column, he wrote about people warning him of her marrying him for his money, saying, “I am sorry for the 99 percent of people who wish for this marriage to fall apart, but I am confident that I will be happy.” Eight months after writing that column both his dog Eve and he were dead.

Saki Sudo of Sapporo

Saki Sudo was born in Sapporo, Hokkaido, the middle child in a middle-class family. She was a quiet child who enjoyed time alone reading manga. She attended school and her classmates said she wasn’t very interested in studying or sports. She was a quiet, ordinary Japanese girl who seemed to be a bit shy.

However, later in high school, she started to get interested in money, brand names, and beauty. She had a lot of CHANEL products which are quite expensive in Japan and are hard to come by for students.

After graduating high school she decided to attend a vocational school in beauty and make-up. Around this time, she was known to work nights as a prostitute job called delivery health. Because prostitution is illegal in Japan, a loophole exists is women who offer delivery health. These women meet men at love hotels and take money for offering sexual services but not actual penetration which is the only thing that is illegal. Of course, for a little extra they might offer more and no one would be the wiser.

Japanese reports also mentioned that while attending the beauty school, Saki was also working as an adult actress in Japanese porn videos. She would also visit a host club (the male version of hostess clubs) and was infatuated with a host. She would spend hundreds of dollars going to the host club, buying him drinks, and giving huge tips that are required to have private time with a host. He eventually moved to Tokyo so Saki also decided to follow him.

After graduating from the beauty college she headed to Tokyo to follow the host but she told her mother she was going to find work as a beautician. Instead, she continued her adult video job as well as working as a hostess.

Her mother told reporters,

“I don’t even know where to go to meet my daughter. I only went to her home in Tokyo once. I only learned about things from TV and the internet. I haven’t received any calls from the police. She won’t pick up her phone so I can’t even talk to her. I want to write a letter, but I don’t know the address.”

Meeting and Marrying

Japan Times reported that Saki never mentioned having any jobs but often flaunted her expensive clothes, jewelry, and accessories saying she had plenty of money from stock trading. She also claimed she was a model when she met Kosuke Nozaki at Tokyo Haneda Airport.

In his book, he mentions meeting a beautiful model at Haneda airport who helped him up. However, other reports in Japanese media found that they may have been introduced by a third party and began dating after Kosuke promised her a monthly allowance of 1 million yen (about $10,000) if she married him.

After meeting in the late fall of 2017, Saki and Kosuke got married in February 2018. Saki moved from Tokyo to Wakayama where Kosuke was from and didn’t tell her family of her marriage. She just told her mother that a friend had asked her to help with a real estate business so she had moved.

It seemed like the match was a win-win situation for both parties. Saki was now married to a man who was worth about 5 billion yen ( about $45 million) and was able to travel the world and live the luxurious life she had been dreaming about since high school. And Kosuke was now married a third time to a tall, slim, model who was 55 years his junior.

In his second memoir when talking about his new wife, he wrote,

“She has white skin with a firmness that repels water. She is from Hokkaido, so her skin is like white porcelain and smooth. Our time in the bedroom is also fun. I’m convinced that is the secret to staying young. We have a quota of sex three times a day and I don’t need Viagara or other ED drugs. I know having so much sex may cause my death but if I can die having sex and go to heaven than I am good. She says she would go to heaven with me.”

And just three months later Kosuke’s dream would come true as both Kosuke and his dog Eve would be dead.

Goodbye Eve

Eve was Kosuke’s miniature dachshund that meant everything to him. He carried her around wherever he went, spending lavish amounts of money on her food, fashion, and care. He would even often tell reporters that he might leave all his inheritance to her when he died.

Asahi News reported Kosuke’s dog died just two months after Saki moved in on May 6th and was buried in the backyard. “Eve suddenly became ill and was taken in the middle of the night to see a veterinarian, but died struggling in Nozaki’s arms. After the incident, the prefectural police suspected that Mr. Nozaki’s dog might have been given a stimulant, so they dug up the dog’s remains and conducted an examination.”

Unfortunately by the time the dog’s remains had been retrieved, investigators said the body of the dog had deteriorated too much to detect any drug residue. Kosuke himself was shocked and saddened by the death that he asked the local monk at the temple to hold a memorial ceremony. He told the monk that Eve became wild in her last moments and went into a fit.

Kosuke’s last day

Just 18 days after the death of his dog Eve, Kosuke was found lying naked on a couch in his home at around 9 pm on May 24, 2018. CCTV cameras around his house showed that only Kosuke and two others had come in or out of his home. The first was his wife Saki and the other was a housekeeper in her 60’s who had been working for Kosuke for 30 years.

Kyodo News reported the cause of death being a lethal amount of stimulant drugs. There were no needle marks found and Kosuke did not have a history of taking stimulants, so medical examiners believed the drugs to be administered orally; most likely in a drink.

Around 6 pm after dinner, Kosuke went up to the 2nd-floor bedroom. Saki told the police that she heard noises from upstairs but didn’t go to check on Kosuke until 8 pm when the housekeeper who had been out, came home and told her to attend to Kosuke. When Saki went upstairs, Kosuke had already died and was in the process of rigor mortis.

When police arrived, both Saki and the housekeeper were questioned. During the investigation, once it was revealed that Kosuke hadn’t died of natural causes, suicide was ruled out. Kosuke was in the middle of preparing for the farewell party of his dog Eve and had contacted many people including media outlets and a musician to play at the service. It was unlikely that he would have taken his life before saying goodbye to his beloved pet Eve.

Police took samples of urine from all of those around Kosuke and started an investigation into the murder of Kosuke Nozaki. According to reporting from the Tokyo Reporter, A man who attended Nozaki’s funeral said to Saki, “It must be hard considering the death of your husband.” She responded, “Not really.” During most of the funeral proceedings, she was also seen using her smartphone and talking pleasantly with the housekeeper.

Three Years Later

As police were conducting the investigation into the death of Kosuke, Saki spent the next three years in the spotlight. Many people, including Kosuke’s living family members, believed that Saki had something to do with his death. She had no alibi as she was having dinner with him in the evening and was home during the time he would have ingested the drugs. She seemed like the most likely person to be able to slip the lethal amount of drugs into his drink.

But there was also suspicion on the housekeeper, who had worked for Kosuke for many years and had told her friends, “Kosuke really treasures me so when he dies he said he would give me 40 million yen.” She was also in works with Kosuke helping him with a real estate project.

Arrest

Throughout the 3 months that Saki and Kosuke were married, Saki was rarely in Wakayama with Kosuke. She had a $2500 dollar a month apartment in Shinagawa Tokyo she often stayed at or was touring places like Italy, Dubai, Singapore, and Bali. Her Instagram always showed her enjoying her life and spending the money that she was paying herself each month from Kosuke’s real estate and liquor empire.

Police however were still continuing their investigation slowly but methodically and slowly a likely suspect started to become clearer. After confiscating Saki’s phone and checking her internet history, they were able to find that she had searched for the illegal drugs that had been found in Kosuke’s system.

The Japan Times reported that police had found messages that linked Saki to a drug dealer who she paid to allegedly procure the drugs. Saki was also found withdrawing a large sum of money and hoping to board a plane to Dubai where she planned to live in exile.

But before she could escape, police caught up with her at her Tokyo apartment and she was escorted by police to Wakayama where she was charged with the murder of Kosuke Nozaki and for violation of the Stimulant Drug Control Law. Police still haven’t released if she confessed to the crimes.

Kosuke’s Fortune

With Saki currently under arrest and awaiting a trial, who gets Kosuke’s fortune which includes many properties, millions of dollars, and assets is still undecided. If Saki is found guilty she will be ineligible for the inheritance.

The Tanabe city government confirmed that Kosuke had left a handwritten will that said he would donate 1.3 billion yen worth of property to the city. But his family filed a lawsuit to nullify the will stating that someone other than Kosuke had written it.

This is the current situation with details of Saki, Kosuke, and the events around Kosuke’s death being plastered over television, newspaper, and internet. Every news outlet around the world has started reporting on the whirlwind story of the murder of the “Don Juan of Japan.”

Hopefully, as the trial begins and the truth comes out, people will find out the true story of the death of Kosuke Nozaki and if Saki Sudo was a selfish money-hungry woman who decided to murder her millionaire husband because she couldn’t wait for him to die.

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