Manager of Sapporo's 'Headless' Hotel Has One Simple Wish
The manager of that infamous hotel in Sapporo just wants you to forget the whole headless murder thing ever happened.
The Phone Call You Never Want to Get
It all started on a Sunday afternoon back in July 2023. The hotel's general manager was enjoying a day off in Hakodate, far from Sapporo, when his phone rang. It was the hotel's front desk manager.
The initial report was an incredible understatement: someone had collapsed in a room. The first employee to find them said there wasn't much blood, the bed was unused, and they thought it was a woman lying in the tub. They even tapped them on the shoulder to try and wake them up.
"There's no head"
By the time the manager rushed back to Sapporo, his hotel was a full-blown crime scene, wrapped in police tape. He wasn't allowed inside. Only the front desk manager and the poor part-timer who found the body saw the room itself.
Standing outside in the chaos, he happened to overhear a conversation between a police officer and a paramedic. The words he caught have stuck with him for three years: 'There's no head.' The shock, he said, was beyond belief.
The Business Ghost That Won't Leave
Fast forward three years, and the hotel is still a financial disaster. This all happened right as business was finally picking up after the pandemic, of course. Today, revenue and guest numbers are less than half of what they were, and the place has been losing money ever since.
They did everything you're supposed to do when your hotel becomes a national news story for the worst possible reason. The room was professionally deep-cleaned, and they even brought in a priest for an exorcism (お祓い). But guests still won't come. The business is haunted, not by a spirit, but by its own Google results. 👻
To make it worse, employees started quitting — including the one who made the discovery. They couldn't find new staff, and for a while, had to close two days a week. We all know how hard it is to hire in Japan, but imagine adding 'site of a gruesome unsolved murder' to the job description.
Please, Just Forget
The manager’s feeling on the whole thing is maybe the most Japanese part of the story. He's not angry at the alleged killers. He just wants the trial to be over so people can finally move on and his business can recover.
'It can't be helped,' he said. 'It wasn't our fault, we were just chosen by chance. I just want... this incident to be forgotten by the public.' The only reason he's even giving this interview, bringing it all up again, is because he's afraid of rumors spreading more than the actual facts. The main suspect's trial, by the way, doesn't even have a start date yet. So he'll be waiting a while.