On a list of worst yet most original ways to strike up a conversation with the opposite sex, slashing their tires just so you could then come and offer assistance has to rank pretty high…
A 32-year-old man from Aichi Prefecture, Japan, was recently arrested after allegedly slashing a woman’s tire just so he could follow her and offer assistance when she eventually pulled over to check the wheel. On June 11, an unnamed 43-year-old woman walked out of the supermarket in Higashiura, went to her car and drove away. She didn’t get very far before noticing that her driver’s side front tire was almost completely flat, so she pulled over to check it out. That’s when a friendly man stopped his car next to hers and offered to help fix her flat. It’s not every day that you get to meet such kind souls, the only problem was that the woman quickly realized that the same thing had happened to her just a year before, and the knight in shining armor looked suspiciously familiar too…
Troubled by this bizarre case of deja vu, the woman notified the police, explaining to them that the exact same “accident” had happened to her just a year before. After checking the surveillance camera in the supermarket parking lot, police quickly discovered that the man who had helped the woman fix her flat tire had slashed it only minutes before she walked out of the supermarket.
The culprit was identified as 32-year-old Yoshito Harada, and he immediately admitted to the crime, telling police that he had only done it as an excuse to get to know the woman. That’s a weird way to break the ice with someone you like, but the strangest thing about this story is that this wasn’t just a one-time thing for Harada. He had done it quite a few times in the past…
When lat month’s incident made national news, a few people commented about a strangely similar case dating back to 2013 involving a man also named Harada, who was 25 at the time, cam from the same town and slashed women’s tires as a way to approach them. Back then, his lawyer claimed that Harada had slashed women’s tires at least 1,000 times.
SoraNews24 recently reported that back in 2013 Yoshito Harada managed to avoid jail time for his repeated tire slashing by compensating the few victims that came forward with 30,000 yen ($279) each. He also agreed to wear a GPS tracking bracelet so his parents could monitor his whereabouts and ensure that he stayed out of trouble.
But dodging the bullet once wasn’t enough for Harada to change his ways. In 2016, he was once again taken into police custody after one of his victims called an acquaintance who had also suffered the same accident and had received assistance from the very same 28-year-old man, just a few month prior. Interestingly, the same kind of coincidence had led to his original arrest in 2013.
Although the exact number of times Yoshito Harada slashed women’s tires is still unknown, he was believed to have done it over 1,000 times by his lawyer in 2013, and it happened often enough that he actually targeted the same woman twice in one year, and two women who knew each other on at least two occasions. The saddest thing is that despite all his efforts, he was still unable to hit it off with at least one of his victims…
A 32-year-old man from Aichi Prefecture, Japan, was recently arrested after allegedly slashing a woman’s tire just so he could follow her and offer assistance when she eventually pulled over to check the wheel. On June 11, an unnamed 43-year-old woman walked out of the supermarket in Higashiura, went to her car and drove away. She didn’t get very far before noticing that her driver’s side front tire was almost completely flat, so she pulled over to check it out. That’s when a friendly man stopped his car next to hers and offered to help fix her flat. It’s not every day that you get to meet such kind souls, the only problem was that the woman quickly realized that the same thing had happened to her just a year before, and the knight in shining armor looked suspiciously familiar too…
Troubled by this bizarre case of deja vu, the woman notified the police, explaining to them that the exact same “accident” had happened to her just a year before. After checking the surveillance camera in the supermarket parking lot, police quickly discovered that the man who had helped the woman fix her flat tire had slashed it only minutes before she walked out of the supermarket.
The culprit was identified as 32-year-old Yoshito Harada, and he immediately admitted to the crime, telling police that he had only done it as an excuse to get to know the woman. That’s a weird way to break the ice with someone you like, but the strangest thing about this story is that this wasn’t just a one-time thing for Harada. He had done it quite a few times in the past…
SoraNews24 recently reported that back in 2013 Yoshito Harada managed to avoid jail time for his repeated tire slashing by compensating the few victims that came forward with 30,000 yen ($279) each. He also agreed to wear a GPS tracking bracelet so his parents could monitor his whereabouts and ensure that he stayed out of trouble.
Although the exact number of times Yoshito Harada slashed women’s tires is still unknown, he was believed to have done it over 1,000 times by his lawyer in 2013, and it happened often enough that he actually targeted the same woman twice in one year, and two women who knew each other on at least two occasions. The saddest thing is that despite all his efforts, he was still unable to hit it off with at least one of his victims…
