The cold case of Namiko Takaba, the Nagoya housewife murdered in 1999, and the husband who paid rent on her bloodstained apartment for 26 years to preserve the DNA that finally caught her killer.

On November 13, 1999, 32-year-old Namiko opened her door to a woman posing as a beverage saleswoman. Minutes later she was dead, stabbed in her own home while her two-year-old son sat unharmed beside her. Police interviewed 5,000 people and had almost nothing: a blood type, a shoe size, and one drink on the table that didn't belong.

But her husband Satoru refused to let the case die. He never cleaned the blood. He kept paying rent on the empty "haunted house" for 26 years, all to preserve the killer's DNA until science could catch up. In 2025, it finally did.

One of the most haunting cold cases we've ever covered. Tap in for the full story and the twist nobody saw coming.

⚠️ Discusses violent crime. Listener discretion advised.

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In memory of Namiko Takaba.

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