The villainous Harumi Matsuzaki
Harumi Matsuzaki (Yuko Minaguchi) is the villainess (remorseful) of "Scuba Diving Murder Case", episodes 5.08 and 5.09 of Case Closed (airdates August 24 and 31, 1998). She was the stepsister of Masahiko Matsuzaki, and was also close with his college friends, including his fiancee Kiwako Toda.
Her backstory also revealed that she had harbored a crush on Masahiko from when they were younger, but kept her feelings hidden when their parents were married and Masahiko began dating Kiwako. Harumi also held jealousy towards Kiwako, believing that Kiwako was selfish and attempting to make her feel like she didn't know Masahiko as well as she did.
While Kiwako and Masahiko were at the beach with their friends, Kiwako enlisted Harumi's help in testing her fiancee's love for her. Her plan consisted of her pretending to drown to see if Masahiko would try and save her, despite him not being able to swim. Harumi begrudgingly agreed to Kiwako's plan and decided to use it as her chance to kill Kiwako. After retrieving a sea snake and storing it in her fanny pack, Harumi swam out to Kiwako when she began to fake drowning and had the snake bite Kiwako on the hand, injecting her with the snake's poisonous venom.
After Kiwako was hospitalized, Conan Edogawa (who had met Kiwako and company while at the beach with Kogoro and Ran Mouri, as well as Kogoro's estranged wife, Eri Kisaki) began to investigate and deduced that Kiwako's attack was not a freak accident as was originally believed and that Harumi was the culprit. Conan (while impersonating Kogoro) revealed the truth to her, Ran, and Eri at the hospital, with the key piece of evidence proving Harumi's guilt being the tape she'd used to restrain the sea snake in her fanny pack. Remnants of the tape were spotted on the snake by Ran after the attack, and Conan inferred that the rest of the tape was still in Harumi's fanny pack and would have snake scales stuck to them.
Cornered, Harumi confessed to attacking Kiwako, revealing her hidden feelings for her stepbrother and ranting about her resentment of Kiwako. Harumi also revealed that she'd had second thoughts on going through with her attack and became tearful as she expressed remorse for her actions against Kiwako. Soon after, it was revealed that Kiwako had miraculously recovered from the snake bite, and when Harumi came to Kiwako's bedside, Kiwako surprised her by apologizing for asking Harumi to help her in her prank, proclaiming that it was selfish of her and that she hadn't known Harumi was in love with Masahiko until she saw her face when Masahiko nearly drowned trying to save her. In response, Harumi tearfully pleaded for Kiwako's forgiveness for attempting to kill her, much to Masahiko's confusion. It can be assumed Kiwako didn't turn Harumi into the police for the murder attempt against her.
Trivia[]
- In the English dub, Harumi's name is translated as Haley Martin and is voiced by Leah Clark.
- Harumi Matsuzaki is similar to Yuki Takeno, a villainess from Case Closed's ninth season; as both were women who attempted to kill a friend of theirs due to jealousy of them being involved with a man they were in love with. Both women also expressed intense remorse afterwards for their murder attempt and share the same fate: avoiding arrest for their actions due to their friend deciding to cover for them.