Two Japanese Schoolgirls Place Their Shoes Side-By-Side With A Suicide Note...Then Jump To Their Deaths From A Building Top

 

Two young Japanese girls left their shoes side by side high up on an apartment building then jumped to their deaths in a joint suicide that has shocked the country.

According to DailyMail, the elementary schoolgirls, aged 11 and 12, made the fatal leap from between the seventh and eight floors of the building in Tokyo’s Ota Ward, leaving residents around the nation asking: Why?

Police said the youngsters had left a suicide note with their neatly-laid- out shoes, but declined to reveal its contents.

'The note is a matter for the parents - it is personal,’ said a police spokesman. Police said the 11-year-old lived with her family in the apartment building, while her 12-year-old classmate lived nearby.

Baffled school officials told the Japan Times newspaper that the girls had attended school on Friday and had apparently got on well with their classmates.

'There had been no incidents of bullying or anything like that,’ said a school official. 'They were in the same class and appeared to get on well with everyone.’

Their classmates said the girls were both bright and considered as leaders among their friends. ‘They did not show any signs of being worried about anything,’ said a school friend.

After removing their shoes the girls jumped, one dying instantly when they hit the asphalt parking lot near the entrance to the building. The other child died shortly afterwards.

Shocked Japanese families have taken to newspaper comment sites and social media to ask how two young girls with everything to live for should have made such a fatal decision to die together.

A report by the World Health Organisation ranks the suicide rate in Japan as fourth among high-income countries.