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Detective Conan Episode 1210: The Cursed Neighbor’s House

The Cursed Neighbor's House Explained: Two Wounds and a Five-Year Lie | Case Closed

Spoilers follow for the supposed curse, the murder five years earlier and the present attack on Mrs. Haruno.

Uryu killed Murakumo five years earlier and now tries to silence Mrs. Haruno. Mrs. Haruno did push Murakumo and cause an injury to the side of his head, but Uryu inflicted the later fatal blow to the back of it. The supposed curse combines Mrs. Haruno’s invented reason for moving away with real threats that Uryu adds to frighten her.

The Cursed Neighbor's House is international episode 1270 (Japanese episode 1210), an anime-original mystery. The solution links an old murder with a present attempted murder, while overturning Mrs. Haruno’s belief that she has lived as a killer for five years.

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The former neighbor contradicts the story of a curse

The former neighbor contradicts the story of a curse

On their way home, Conan and Kogoro find Mr. Haruno peering into the empty house next door. His wife has become frightened of the property, insists that it is cursed and wants the family to move. He is worried about her but uncertain what has caused such urgency.

The former neighbor gives a straightforward explanation for leaving: a change connected with work. They never told Mrs. Haruno that the house was cursed. Her account is therefore not a report of something the neighbor actually said.

Mr. Haruno also remembers his wife saying that something from five years ago was not over. That remark shifts the inquiry from the empty building to an event she has been keeping from her family. Her eagerness to leave suggests an attempt to escape a person or a secret.

A real attack forces the hidden history into the open

A real attack forces the hidden history into the open

Mrs. Haruno is pushed from behind on the stairs at Beika Station and injured. A cleaner sees someone resembling Uryu leaving just after the attack. The frightening situation now includes an actual attempt on her life, regardless of whether the house is cursed.

Pressed by her husband to explain, Mrs. Haruno recounts what happened five years earlier. A drunken Murakumo tried to grab her, and she pushed him away. He struck the side of his head, fell onto his side and stopped moving. Believing that she had killed him, she fled without reporting what had happened.

As she left, she passed Uryu near the scene. Recently she has seen Uryu in the neighborhood again and become frightened that this witness knows her secret. The curse story is Mrs. Haruno’s attempt to persuade her family to leave without telling them what she believes she has done.

The disturbing papers she receives are a separate act. They invoke death and curses, turning her invented explanation into something that feels like a genuine threat. Uryu has added intimidation to the story Mrs. Haruno created for her own family.

The old police account conflicts with her memory

The old police account conflicts with her memory

Conan and Kogoro visit the police station at Kazehaya and consult Detective Yukigaya. He knows Kogoro from his time as a police officer; they once worked together on a robbery investigation. Their reunion opens the way to a closer examination of the unsolved murder.

An elderly couple, not Uryu, found Murakumo’s body and called the police. Uryu stated that she had been at home. Mrs. Haruno’s memory of passing her near the scene conflicts with that account, raising a question about why Uryu concealed her presence.

Kogoro also discovers that Murakumo had been blackmailing Uryu. She therefore had a reason to resent him. His investigation brings together a motive and a possible presence at the scene, but he initially gives her silence a sympathetic interpretation: perhaps she had kept quiet to protect Mrs. Haruno.

That explanation distinguishes Kogoro’s useful discoveries from his mistaken conclusion. The blackmail connection is real; the belief that Uryu acted out of kindness still has to fit the injuries and the condition in which Murakumo was found.

Two head injuries separate the push from the killing

Two head injuries separate the push from the killing

Murakumo had two different injuries. Mrs. Haruno’s push accounts for the wound at the side of his head, but the fatal injury came from a later blow to the back of it. Causing the first injury is not the same event as causing his death.

The body’s position provides another discrepancy. Mrs. Haruno remembers leaving Murakumo lying on his side; the elderly couple found him on his back. That difference suggests another person acted at the scene after she fled, supporting the later reconstruction.

The injuries and changed position therefore have different roles. The injuries establish that the fatal violence was separate from the push. The position helps reconstruct the interval after Mrs. Haruno left. Her confession describes a frightening encounter and a flight from it, but it is not a complete account of the killing.

Uryu uses another woman’s guilt to hide her own crime

Uryu uses another woman’s guilt to hide her own crime

After Mrs. Haruno fled, Uryu approached Murakumo and struck the back of his head, killing him. Her resentment arose from his blackmail. The exact object used for the fatal blow remains unclear, but the location and fatal nature of that second injury are established in the solution.

Uryu then claimed to have been at home. Mrs. Haruno’s belief that her push had been fatal helped preserve the concealment: fearing exposure herself, she did not come forward with the fact that she had seen Uryu nearby. The two women feared disclosure for different reasons.

Five years later, the renewed encounter puts that lie at risk. If Mrs. Haruno talks to police, Uryu’s claimed whereabouts and the circumstances of the death can be challenged. Uryu first uses the written threats to drive her away, then pushes her down the station stairs in an attempt to silence her permanently.

Mrs. Haruno has been afraid of Uryu as a witness to the push. Uryu is afraid of Mrs. Haruno as someone who can contradict her alibi. Once that difference is understood, the apparent shared secret divides into two very different histories.

The evidence joins the old murder to the current attack

The evidence joins the old murder to the current attack

Conan explains the solution through Sleeping Kogoro. The fatal rear injury, the changed body position, the contradicted home alibi and the blackmail relationship combine to identify Uryu’s role in Murakumo’s death. The cleaner’s sighting adds evidence connecting her to the attack at the station.

The cleaner initially describes someone resembling Uryu, so that observation does not identify her with certainty on its own and must be considered with the other evidence. Likewise, the blackmail provides a motive without by itself proving a murder. Each item answers a different question raised by the others.

Faced with the reconstruction, Uryu gives in, and Yukigaya handles the matter. Mrs. Haruno is shown not to have killed Murakumo. She survives the current attack, although she has been injured, and she and her husband can finally understand what lay behind the fear surrounding their home.

The relief cannot give back five years

The relief cannot give back five years

The apparent haunting is frightening because it begins beside an ordinary family home. The former resident’s denial removes the supernatural explanation quickly, yet it does not remove the danger. Instead, it reveals how a story invented to escape fear has become useful to the person causing it.

The deduction turns on modest physical differences: side and back, one wound and another, an injured man as remembered and a body as later found. Those distinctions overturn the conclusion Mrs. Haruno has carried for years. Her certainty about her guilt has been stronger than her knowledge of what happened after she left.

Kogoro’s work also deserves its place in the solution. He uncovers the blackmail himself and gets close to the truth, but reads Uryu’s silence as generosity. Conan does not discard his investigation; he adds the physical evidence that changes its meaning. The case gives Kogoro both competence and a charitable instinct that leads him astray.

The Harunos’ relief is real, but so is the time spent living with a false belief. Uryu has benefited from that suffering and then tried to prolong her concealment through another killing. The ending releases Mrs. Haruno from the belief that she murdered Murakumo while leaving the cruelty of those lost years in view.

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