Komine Pass:
A Murderer's Hunting Ground

The name Komine Pass refers to a former road that snaked around and tunnelled through the mountains in Hachioji, the suburb at the very west of Tokyo. As car traffic grew, a newer, more modern road was built a stone’s throw away. The Pass then became a popular hiking trail.

However, in the late 80s, Komine Pass earned a gruesome reputation that has made it into a rarely-traversed, decaying site today.

A Horrific Crime

During that time, Japan was rocked by the news of a murderer nicknamed ‘The Otaku Killer’. I’m honestly glad that he didn’t get a cool moniker. In fact, the press were essentially calling him a loser with the use of the word ‘otaku’ (オタク). In Japan, and especially at that time, ‘otaku’ had extremely negative connotations, and was mostly used as a pejorative.

This young man kidnapped and murdered four little girls under the age of 10. I want to say their names here – Mari Konno, Masami Yoshizawa, Erika Namba, and Ayako Nomoto. I won’t go into all of the terrible details here, but Murderpedia has a really in-depth page about the case if you want to read up on it. I will warn you that this case involves (BIG trigger warning!!) mutilation, CSA, necrophilia, cannibalism, and taunting of the victims’ families. It’s truly horrific.

The murderer, who I refuse to name here, was apprehended and executed for his crimes. Good.

Naturally, Komine Pass became less popular since these events, as the ‘Otaku Killer’ is known to have dumped two of his victims near the tunnel there. It’s said to be the most haunted tunnel in Japan, so of course I felt compelled to go and see it for myself. 

Who’s ready for some terrible photos taken in the dark?

The Harbinger

Caroline joins me again for this excursion. We visited the Pass in the winter. After lunching in Asakusa, we took the subway all the way out to  Musashi-Itsukaichi station. This took two and a half hours, by which time the sun was setting quickly behind the mountains.

To save as much light as possible, we decided to get a taxi out to the Pass. There was one idling outside the station so I asked for a ride to Komine Park, which sits across the road from the way to Komine Pass. I wasn’t silly enough to make our ghoulish intentions crystal clear, but I’m sure the driver knew what was up. And of course, we got the driver with excellent English. During the ride, he kept saying things like “…But it’s getting dark.” and “Won’t you be scare[sic]?” several times, like the harbinger character in a horror film.

And, like stupid white people in a horror film, we bluffed that we just fancied a lovely walk near the mountains. We said we wanted to see a quieter place away from the city and that we’d be fiiiiiiine. Seriously, we spend all of our time yelling at people in horror films for making Really Stupid Decisions, and yet here we were doing the same thing.

The driver also mentioned that – about a year ago – some girls had asked him to go to the same place and added thoughtfully, “Maybe they were looking for the same thing as you are.” He was far too polite to confront us, but clearly knew what we were planning.

As we pulled up to a road near the visitor’s centre, the driver said, “The Park is closed.” It actually wasn’t, but I believe this was his last ditch effort to stop us. He suggested that we stop by the visitor centre before our walk, and we agreed in the hopes that he’d worry less.

Before we got out of the car, he printed off a receipt with his phone number on it and told us to call him if we needed a taxi. Then he pointed out the bus stop across the road and informed us that catching a bus from there would also take us right back to the station. It was really kind of him to make sure we knew where we were going and had a couple of safe options.

Having stalled as much as he could, he drove off and we felt sort of bad for putting him in that position. I hoped that he wouldn’t spend his evening fretting about us.

The Deserted Road

We had almost completely lost the light by the time we walked to the old road leading to the Pass. The sky was a rapidly-darkening blue and the sun had disappeared behind the foothills. There was a chain strung across the road to stop cars from coming down it, but pedestrians are still allowed to enter.

As we walked, the mountain rose steeply up to our right, covered in dense trees. Caroline asked me what was rustling around up there and I said, “Just some critters.” which is the sensible answer, but I was of course paranoid that it was ghosts.

After a short time, we came to a large factory or power plant-looking structure which hummed quietly. I later learned that it was a water pumping station. There were lots of lights around it, which was a momentary relief. From there, we could see lit-up houses and hear voices and laughter from the residential streets. This was the last little glimpse of other humans we had before going further along the Pass.

As soon as we passed a gate to stop vehicles and rounded the mountain a bit more, the noise and light was just gone.

There were lots of sharp turns that made the road behind us disappear quickly around the mountain. Grass and creeping plants were taking over the road itself. The only really clear part was the middle with the dividing lines still visible, though very weathered. On one side, the mountain rose higher still, covered in the stands of trees I mentioned earlier. On the other, a rusted old crash barrier was the only thing that separated us from a sheer, pitch-black drop. Looking over the edge was a huge mistake; it just looked like a void.

Our phone torches barely lit the way in front of us, and taking photos with flash didn’t do much better. It was so, so dark up there, and cold. The further we walked, the more we slowed down. A great blanket of dread hung on us and our nerves were on a hair-trigger.

Someone’s Here

I became used to the ambient noises of us walking and the sounds of the trees, but a new noise suddenly started. It sounded like soft footfalls, coming from behind us like someone was trying their best to creep up. Like they didn’t want me to hear. I didn’t hear the approach. The sound just started, as though someone had just been dropped out of thin air right behind us.

I spun around so quickly that I don’t even remember doing it, and of course nothing was there. My heart was pounding and I felt like I couldn’t move for a moment. I wanted to scramble but there was nowhere to run. Caroline asked me what was wrong, and I told her that the Pikachu coin purse hanging from her backpack (similar to this one) had startled me with its jingling. I couldn’t bring myself to say aloud what I thought I’d heard, not there. Instead, I decided to share that later, when we were back in the light.

We stopped walking at one point and had a discussion about whether we wanted to proceed – the feelings of fear had gotten that bad. Instead, we talked ourselves up and swore at ourselves and said that we were so close now, that we had to see this through. So we continued, shuffling even slower and clutching each other’s hands. I was afraid that, any minute, the torch would illuminate something that shouldn’t be there. I don’t think I’ve ever been that viscerally frightened in my life. Something felt sick there.

Caroline almost gave me a heart attack when she suddenly said, “What is that?” She was pointing to a reflection of our torchlight, which we soon realised was bouncing off of a dusty old road mirror. I asked her, with calm fury, to never do that to me again before we moved on. We were literally around the corner from the tunnel itself when we stopped once more.

This time we couldn’t bring ourselves to start moving again. Every single cell in my body wanted to leave, and my muscles felt tense and primed, ready to start running away. I think if we’d seen the tunnel itself we might’ve lost our heads completely. So we made the decision to leave. I’ve never been scared enough to have to leave a place before, and I have never felt the way I felt up there that night. Even Doryo-do wasn’t a patch on this.

As always, I’m willing to concede that knowing the history of what happened there might have made us more spooked. So did deliberately making it extra creepy by going on a dark winter evening. But I’m not easily rattled, and Komine Pass rattled me.

A Thought for the Dead

When we got to the oasis of light at the water pumping station, we sat down. All the way back, we had forced ourselves to walk calmly, back along the dark path, and out of the gate. It was exhausting trying to keep ourselves in check when we felt so frightened.

Once we were back in the light and at rest, the abject terror started to melt away and all I could feel was a deep sadness. The place was evil, and terrible things had happened there, but we both expressed feeling melancholy. It seemed such a lonely, cold place to die. Imagine those little girls just being callously discarded here, what they must have gone through in their last moments, how scared they would have been. It’s just tragic.

We stayed there for a while and said some words for Misami and Mari, the two victims who had been left up there. The essential gist was that people still know their names and care about them, and we told them we were so sorry that that had happened to them.

Before we left, we said, “ご冥福をお祈りします (gomeifuku o oinorishimasu).” which basically means ‘rest in peace’. The literal translation, which I think is gorgeous, is: May your soul rest in peace, I pray for your happiness in the afterlife. You can pooh-pooh this if you like, but we have always been very spiritual, and we like to believe we got through to those poor girls.

I was lost in thought as we walked out of the last part of the road. So much so that I walked right into the chain strung across it. It was at knee height and caught me on my more-damaged knee, so it really bloody hurt. For a few days afterwards, I had a chain-shaped bruise across my knee like I’d been hit with one.

…It was quite funny, though.

Swapping Stories

Once we were back on the main road, I told Caroline the truth about the footsteps I’d heard. She was suitably freaked out, and agreed that I’d made the right decision by not telling her while we were still up there.

My blood went cold when she said she’d felt a tug on her bag, like somebody had gently pulled the Pikachu purse hanging from it. Apparently it was scary but hadn’t felt malicious at all. She said it was like something a playful child might do. Whereas I was of the opinion that the ‘footsteps’ I heard were definitely not playful or friendly. I don’t know what to make of it, but I’m still getting chills remembering this and writing it down.

We caught the bus from the stop across the street and it was a relief to be in a warm, brightly-lit vehicle. Physically moving away from the Pass really settled our nerves. It was quite a drive back to the train station, so we were able to warm up and relax a bit before having to brave the night again. 

The Harbinger Returns

For those of you worried about our harbinger, we reconnected with him! Once we got to the train station, we saw a taxi outside and wondered if it could be our driver from earlier. It was!

I approached the window to say hi and he was so pleased to see us. He asked how our walk had gone, and if it was scary. I said, “Um, a bit… it was cold!” He laughed and agreed that it was a chilly night. Then he asked us what our plans were now, and was really surprised that we had to get all the way back to Ueno (where our hotel was). I don’t think he realised how far we’d actually come.

We bid him a warm farewell and thanked him again for his help earlier, and he waved us off with a big smile. I’m so glad we got to catch up with him, and that he definitely knows we made it back safely.

Fear Creates Hunger

After the adrenaline overdose up at Komine Pass, we were absolutely starving. Being scared shitless really works up one’s appetite. When we got back into the city, we beelined for Shibuya to eat at Gyozaro (餃子樓). I’ve since learned that that roughly translates to Gyoza Tower, which is apt. Seriously, this place is super local and bare-bones, just selling gyoza (dumplings) and basic side dishes. As far as customisation goes, you get to pick whether your gyoza is boiled or fried. That’s it. And it’s cheap and tastes phenomenal. DEFINITELY go there if you’re a dumpling fan.

(Editor’s Note: This segment is not sponsored, I just love Gyozaro. I still daydream about that gyoza!)

Return to Komine Pass

We decided on the subway ride home that next time we’re in Japan, we will visit Komine Pass during the day, with plenty of light. Maybe then we’ll actually make it to the tunnel, and we can gauge how much of our fear response was from the cold and dark. It is one of the more stupid things we’ve done, I have to say, but it was also thrilling.

Keep your eyes peeled (god, I hate that expression – it creates such a disgusting image) for our return to the Pass. Let’s see if we can make it next time.

Did you relate to my description of fear at Komine Pass? Leave a comment below and tell me about the time you were the most scared you’ve ever been. If it was at an allegedly haunted place, tell me where you went so I can check it out!