Japan - Miyazawa family of 4 murdered, Setagaya, Tokyo, 30 Dec 2000 #2

[Charlot123]

I hope nobody thinks I'm casting aspersions on the Miyazawas, because that certainly isn't my intention. I'm just trying to think of an explanation for why the "Iries" didn't react to screaming if they heard any, and why they might lie about it later.

The only reasonably logical explanation I can think of (and again, I'm not saying it's true) is that the Iries were used to hearing fights from the Miyazawa house. It would potentially explain a lot.

This would be nr. one. Nr. two, they didn’t have quiet cellphones at that time. I wonder if there was no light in their own part of the house, the other family was too scared to make noise, to alert the killer that their own house was not empty, and call the police? Human factor. Especially if An’s husband was in GB as he often traveled. Two women and a child in the house? Too understandable. By the time police would find them, they might be dead, too. Fear. The rest, of course, might have been “waiting till the morning”. But, this is just another way to look at it.

 

[Charlot123]

I.C.K.
Ice Cream Killer?
rbbm.

Japan offers US$200k for help solving Setagaya murders, 20 years on

The Miyazawa family were slaughtered in their home on New Year’s Eve 2000 in a case that shocked the nation, but despite the killer leaving a host of clues, nobody has ever been arrested.

www.scmp.com

View attachment 475753

Julian Ryall 2020
“It was a combination of things that caught the attention of the public and the media, including the killings taking place on New Year’s Eve, which is meant to be a time of peace and families being together,” he told the South China Morning Post.''

''Instead of taking cash or other valuables that were in the house, however, the assailant helped himself to food from the freezer, took a nap on the living room sofa and used the family computer.''
View attachment 475752
The attacker’s shoes may hold a key to his identity. Photo: Handout

BTW, about cash. It is customary to give children pretty decent amounts of cash in envelopes for the New Year. So stacks of cash don’t surprise me. It could have been the reason for the break-in too. Two children, NY. Next day celebrating with relatives. Why didn’t he take all cash? Paradoxically, he may have not noticed, people sometimes have tunnel vision or maybe another case of so-called “visual snow”, I can give dozens of examples of homonymous hemianopsia, too, but perhaps going through documents was, ironically, an attempt to find more cash.

 

[Charlot123]

SBM: I definitely agree. Most reasonable to conclude the family didn't know him. At least on any social or close level. If they met, I believe it was in passing. Also just as possible he marked them for death at a distance. Maybe he didn't like their happiness. Maybe it was random.

@FacelessPodcast, I am not yet convinced he is not Japanese, I don’t have enough facts either way, but here is what I understand having read that book. Japan is not an individualistic society. It is very much group-oriented. Belonging to a certain group protects you; it is the only way to live. This perpetrator stands out. He is a loner. Some of his acts are definitely not Japanese. Some are Japanese but individualistic. Something is not fitting in either way. If he didn’t stand out as the person with developmental issues, then he’d be like Eric Harris, visibly OK but falling apart inside. So, whichever way I look, he is a misfit in both worlds. The Tokyo police has to break their concept of privacy and send out his DNA. Privacy applies to “uchi”, in-group. He is not even “Soto”, outside.

Uchi and Soto: Complementary Concepts That Will Help You Learn the Ins and Outs of the Japanese World

内 (uchi) means 'inside' and 外 (soto) means 'outside.' These two concepts help us to define social relations in Japan and there are many other ways to use and distinguish between them in Japanese.

www.tofugu.com

He is so far away from either. Maybe to understand, we all as groups have “uchi” and “Soto”. But what if he is unhuman? Then no concept fits.

 

[Frankie Hellis]

Interesting about Ogikubo. Funnily enough I have lived there too, from early 2013 to late 2015.

Ogikubo’s shopping area surrounds the train station and is very small. I feel like the family would have had a specific reason to travel into Ogikubo since it doesn’t offer much in the way of shopping compared to a few stations down which is Shinjuku and the main areas of central Tokyo. I wonder if the reason was determined they went there? Ogikubo is really known for it’s ramen though, famous in fact in Tokyo!

As for the killer, I guess since his outfit was on sale there it could be his reason. But like I said it is mere minutes from central Tokyo (and is the reason I lived there back then!) so he could’ve just been out and about.

Re: toll roads, I wonder how quickly they would have checked too. In time before your POI left? I don’t want to underestimate the TMPD but I wonder how quick it occurred to them to look and if they found anything at all.

Dude! We might need to know where you were on a specific night long ago!
Completely kidding of course!

I just want to say how incredibly lucky we are to have both you and @FacelessPodcast chatting in this thread. Thank you both!

 

[Charlot123]

Dude! We might need to know where you were on a specific night long ago!
Completely kidding of course!

I just want to say how incredibly lucky we are to have both you and @FacelessPodcast chatting in this thread. Thank you both!

We are super lucky, and the thread is very interesting. It pushed me to read more about the psychology of Japan.

About your joke, i know it is a joke, but begs a question. It is my understanding that a person can either stay inside the country, or leave, but "leave and come back" would be more difficult if someone were related to the Setagaya murders. Am I wrong?

 

[justtrish]

I am new to this case and am working my way through the first thread, but wanted to get some thoughts out before I forget. If this has been mentioned please disregard and know I am working my way through all the previous posts!

I am the spouse of a servicemember so I just had some initial thoughts about the air force base, the sand from nearby to Edwards AFB, but in the bag that had to be bought in Japan, then taken to the US and back..

Initial thoughts were did a servicemember have some training or a military school/training at Edwards AFB.. perhaps they had the bag/fanny pack, went to Edwards for the school/training and then returned to Japan. It's a common occurrence for my husband to go to a different base for 2-4 weeks for training or TDY. This bag then could be used by that servicemember, their children, or a spouse.. or as I've read some have mentioned the bag being sold or donated to a second hand store that the killer was then able to purchase it second hand.

The other thought was did the Air Force have rotator flights or Space A flights from Yokota to Edwards AFB? This is one way that servicemembers and their families can travel from overseas to "home" for free or very cheap. As far as I understand if overseas the family can travel without the servicemember on these flights. Typically then the flights would go base to base and if the passengers needed to get somewhere further than the destination they could rent a car or take a commercial flight, but the flight from one base to the other on the "rotator" flight would be cheap or free and usually they are "space available or Space A". This is one way to get overseas to stateside to visit family for much less than taking a commercial flight. Then they would fly back to Japan the same way and need to get back to Edwards AFB (if there are flights from there to Japan) to take a flight back. That might allow for some sight seeing or exploring close to that base while waiting for the flight. Perhaps allowing someone to get sand from that desert in the bag.

 

[Incoherent]

Dude! We might need to know where you were on a specific night long ago!
Completely kidding of course!

I just want to say how incredibly lucky we are to have both you and @FacelessPodcast chatting in this thread. Thank you both!

Very funny! Haha. I can assure you in the year 2000 I was still eating ice cream and cake for my birthdays and not much older than Niina was.

I am more than happy to keep providing any perspectives and experiences I have that may help.

@Charlot123 since you directed your questions to Nic I’ll leave them to him, but I can help with pretty much all of your questions if anything gets left out.
I will say about the left-handed-ness and it being corrected - it is still a fairly common thing to be requested by parents here even now.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

JMO I believe he visited Soshigaya Park a few times before or while deciding what he was going to do. It’s possible he didn’t target the family specifically, but the park was expanding at that time and also had numerous recreational facilities. It could be speculated on just why he was there, but perhaps for his age range the various facilities and spacious park areas appealed to him and others his age?

Much is made of his "skater clothes" (which I disagree with as a description) given there was a skate park nearby. Why not the actual tennis shoes given the tennis court also nearby? I have no idea what he was doing there to begin with but I also believe he took some time to familiarise himself with the area before the crime.

I do find it hard to believe a POI from Yokota just rocked up to a park in residential Setagaya and just climbed into a house and went for the kill on a whim without at least being there before.
As for if he knew the family personally - I also don’t think so.
But I do think they, or the house, were targeted to some degree.

Yes, for sure. Even if we entertain the idea that his intention was robbery going into the house, the leaves you with the notion that he *knew* there would be money in the house, meaning he must have seen them or known them in some way. If one were to counter and say it was totally random and he just took a punt because of the date and the likelihood of their being cash in the house, why them? Why not, for example, the house across the road that had no neighbours. Personally, I discount theft altogether as the driver for this crime. I think his motive was murder itself.

SBM: as little as one month? It depends how fast they worked with the options that presented themselves. From what we’ve seen, heard, and read, it was almost like the TMPD felt confident they had the guy in the bag due to the sheer amount of evidence left behind. I wonder if it occurred to them to check the toll roads or look into Yokota within that timeframe. I’m inclined to stay they weren’t that quick.
Are you able to confirm if the TMPD has worked this angle?

I cannot confirm whether the TMPD ever worked this angle. I can say, however, that they were extremely confident they would catch him early on. I really hope this didn't lead them away from all possible escape routes.

 

[Charlot123]

Very funny! Haha. I can assure you in the year 2000 I was still eating ice cream and cake for my birthdays and not much older than Niina was.

I am more than happy to keep providing any perspectives and experiences I have that may help.

@Charlot123 since you directed your questions to Nic I’ll leave them to him, but I can help with pretty much all of your questions if anything gets left out.
I will say about the left-handed-ness and it being corrected - it is still a fairly common thing to be requested by parents here even now.

I have read about Japanese surgeons being taught to operate with both right and left hands (training to be ambidextrous, that is). I did not understand the goal of it as I was a kid at that time, but decided to learn to write equally well with both hands, too (I am a strong rightie). When my mom found out about it, she persuaded me to stop my experiments. (She didn't know much about brain wiring either but felt it was not a good Idea.)

Now, re-training lefties into righties is not great, but being ambidextrous might carry an advantage. I don't even know where I am trying to proceed with it, just some intuitively formed thought that has been bothering me. However, in US it would be easy to determine handedness of the murderer. But things might get complicated if the killer is a retrained leftie from Japan living elsewhere.

Imagine the Tokyo police determining that the killer was "likely a rightie". IRL, the murderer is born a leftie, but retrained. If he is indeed a foreigner and goes back home, where there is no pressure to conform, then, to reverse back to a true leftie might take some time, but it is not horribly difficult. So he might be a leftie now. Meanwhile in Japan, the police is still looking for "a rightie" killer.

Alternatively, imagine that he is retrained, but during murders, stress pulls out true handedness. So the wounds look as if inflicted by a leftie, but after murders, he carries on living the way he was retrained, as a rightie.

All of it might be pertinent if the murderer was born a leftie; worldwide, his chance is about 10%.

Anyhow, it would be interesting to see what the angle of the stabs showed.

Look at the geographic differences. Japan in the very bottom. What do you think it means? Probably, many were retrained at school...

Google Image Result for http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/20708.jpeg

 

[FacelessPodcast]

I am new to this case and am working my way through the first thread, but wanted to get some thoughts out before I forget. If this has been mentioned please disregard and know I am working my way through all the previous posts!

welcome @justtrish , thank you for your thoughts.

I am the spouse of a servicemember so I just had some initial thoughts about the air force base, the sand from nearby to Edwards AFB, but in the bag that had to be bought in Japan, then taken to the US and back..

Initial thoughts were did a servicemember have some training or a military school/training at Edwards AFB.. perhaps they had the bag/fanny pack, went to Edwards for the school/training and then returned to Japan. It's a common occurrence for my husband to go to a different base for 2-4 weeks for training or TDY. This bag then could be used by that servicemember, their children, or a spouse.. or as I've read some have mentioned the bag being sold or donated to a second hand store that the killer was then able to purchase it second hand.

Your initial thoughts on the bag mirror my own. We know the bag is Japanese. We know it has sand from Edwards AFB. So, whoever the owner, the bag at least has gone from Japan-->Edwards-->Japan. However, there is zero evidence for the bag being secondhand or stolen. Moreover, the Chief (the initial lead investigator who I interviewed at length on my podcast) confirmed that there was no other DNA or fingerprints or traces of anyone else except the killer on that bag. I asked him if there was anything at all suggesting he stole it or received it some other way. He said no. Is it possible on any level the killer removed forensic traces of another owner or they simply wore away? I guess so. But if he cleaned it, he managed to do it in a way that left sand from the Californian desert in it...

The other thought was did the Air Force have rotator flights or Space A flights from Yokota to Edwards AFB?

I've never been able to confirm a regular transport between Edwards and Yokota--only that servicemen and women have been transferred between the two. But it's possible the killer and his family, if they were stationed at Edwards, moved up to Seattle and took the Patriot Express, for example. I'm thinking something along those lines. Just to throw this in, my person of interest in this case had lived in California before his father was stationed in Japan.

This is one way that servicemembers and their families can travel from overseas to "home" for free or very cheap. As far as I understand if overseas the family can travel without the servicemember on these flights. Typically then the flights would go base to base and if the passengers needed to get somewhere further than the destination they could rent a car or take a commercial flight, but the flight from one base to the other on the "rotator" flight would be cheap or free and usually they are "space available or Space A". This is one way to get overseas to stateside to visit family for much less than taking a commercial flight. Then they would fly back to Japan the same way and need to get back to Edwards AFB (if there are flights from there to Japan) to take a flight back. That might allow for some sight seeing or exploring close to that base while waiting for the flight. Perhaps allowing someone to get sand from that desert in the bag.

Great points.

 

[Charlot123]

Very funny! Haha. I can assure you in the year 2000 I was still eating ice cream and cake for my birthdays and not much older than Niina was.

I am more than happy to keep providing any perspectives and experiences I have that may help.

@Charlot123 since you directed your questions to Nic I’ll leave them to him, but I can help with pretty much all of your questions if anything gets left out.
I will say about the left-handed-ness and it being corrected - it is still a fairly common thing to be requested by parents here even now.

Thank you. One of the questions you can answer firsthand. Do you happen to know if the street on which the Miyazawas' house stands has a formal name, or is it an agglomeration of house numbers but no street name?

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

In the pictures, the Miyazawa and Irie homes look almost like a single building.

Is there any chance the killer thought he was breaking into one large house, rather than a small house with a close next-door neighbour?

 

[FacelessPodcast]

So some questions. I started and finished the book yesterday. Definitely worth reading.

I would probably defer to @Incoherent or one of the users with more experience in Japan than me but I shall do my best!

The Xenophobe's Guide to the Japanese The Xenophobe's Guide to the Japanese Jo Rice - Google Search

1) It says in the book that usually the oldest son stays with the parents, always. Now, this is Japan of 1999, so close to the Setagaya murders time. I am trying to understand what I yet don’t know.

(also, how traditional the family was.)

So… @FacelessPodcast, do you know if Mikio has older brothers? If not, him moving into his wife’s house was already not quite traditional. If he did, why is it only one side of the family in picture? His siblings should have the rights too. The same.

No, I believe Mikio had no brothers. Moreover, family law is heavily weighted in the man's favour in general. I can't say why exactly the Miyazawas ended up in Soshigaya. My best guess: they were living in Tokyo, Haruko was there, it simply made sense. Setsuko, the mother of Mikio, I know had to travel in to spend time with the kids (which she did often).

2) about the school, the college etc. Happy to post excerpts from the book; cram schools are very popular as it is hard to get into a good university. But, IRL, I understand that school bullying was very serious in Japanese schools. Probably much worse than here. I thought Columbine was bad but in Japanese schools it was almost an institutionalized system. And then I came back to cram school. Could it be so that the perpetrator indeed was going to Yasuko’s school, was unhappy with the grades (mostly in the context bullying) and took it on the family? You know what bullied kids can do. (BTW, if Kuromitsu existed, even if he didn’t kill the family…his torture of animals could be also explained by bullying.)

From my own limited experiences in Japanese schools, while bullying and hazing is obviously a serious problem everywhere, my school in London was like Guantanamo Bay compared to what I saw in Tokyo. I do not think on any measurable level bullying is worse in Japan (however that would be measured) than, say, in the London school system which I went through, or the Southern Californian system (which I have some experience in). Maybe I would say it's fairer to qualify the societal and academic pressures in Japan as arguably more intense. But in terms of Yasuko's school, my problem with the theory that the killer was connected to it on any level is two-fold: 1) as I've said many times, the TMPD knew the killer visited the most violence on Yasuko and they believe him to be young. My guess would be her juku would be the first place they would have looked. 2) As I understand it, she was dealing with younger kids. At youngest, the TMPD believe he was 15. I would need confirmation from An Irie (very unlikely) and I'm not sure Setsuko would recall such a detail (she is well into her 90s now). So, my feeling is that the killer was outside of her range anyway. Though, as I say, happy to be corrected on that.

3) from what they write about Japanese toilet system - it would be unbelievable to not flush after himself. So either he was angry and spiteful even after their death, or simply confused and in haze.

I have no strong thoughts either way. Not flushing is bad form in most places though!

4) @FacelessPodcast, the authors write that often there are no street names as such. Houses have names, but might be out of order. So if you are invited, there is often a fax sent out (we are in 1999) with the map. So… my question is, did the street on which Mikio’s house stands have a name?

If not, then the car standing too close to the house that evening could have been for reconnaissance? Not to get lost later? Thoughts?

Having read about Japanese system, I have a different psychological profile of the perpetrator. I can see why the Japanese police thought he was not their own. They might be wrong. But he seems not to fit into any collective, any group, any social stratum.

Addresses in Japan are complicated. I don't believe that the Miyazawas' little street had a name, I think their address might have been something along the lines of: 3-chōme-23-26 Kamisoshigaya, Setagaya City, Tokyo 157-0065, Japan. At any rate, if the killer was looking for them specifically, this only further strengthens the idea that he had watched them (which jives with the idea of there being a car parked too close to them). As for the TMPD believing he was foreign, this was speculated on by the Chief at first, and also by some press. The TMPD have no official opinion on it though.

BTW, apparently, in Japan of 1999, left-handedness was considered not norm and kids were re-taught… food for thought.

The killer is right-handed.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

I hope nobody thinks I'm casting aspersions on the Miyazawas, because that certainly isn't my intention. I'm just trying to think of an explanation for why the "Iries" didn't react to screaming if they heard any, and why they might lie about it later.

The only reasonably logical explanation I can think of (and again, I'm not saying it's true) is that the Iries were used to hearing fights from the Miyazawa house. It would potentially explain a lot.

Another possible explanation: I know that it's said Rei used to shout a lot as a result of his developmental problem. That, combined with arguments that families naturally have, could explain the noise. However, the problem with this at all is that it was said An Irie and her family heard nothing other than the single bang.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

BTW, about cash. It is customary to give children pretty decent amounts of cash in envelopes for the New Year. So stacks of cash don’t surprise me. It could have been the reason for the break-in too. Two children, NY. Next day celebrating with relatives. Why didn’t he take all cash? Paradoxically, he may have not noticed, people sometimes have tunnel vision or maybe another case of so-called “visual snow”, I can give dozens of examples of homonymous hemianopsia, too, but perhaps going through documents was, ironically, an attempt to find more cash.

The cash was sitting right by the computer which he used for 5 minutes and was next to the filing cabinet which he spent time going through. Seeing as he was seemingly searching for things, it would be very difficult for me to imagine that he didn't see that money. Moreover, he ignored the contents of Yasuko's handbag and their value (despite going through it and leaving it in the tub) as well as the foreign currency, any jewelry, and the other valuables in the house. It's possible, of course, that he simply saw none of that and only one amount of cash (which he took). I just don't easily envisage it.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

Dude! We might need to know where you were on a specific night long ago!
Completely kidding of course!

I just want to say how incredibly lucky we are to have both you and @FacelessPodcast chatting in this thread. Thank you both!

The luck is mine, @Frankie Hellis. What a pleasure to share ideas with you all

 

[FacelessPodcast]

We are super lucky, and the thread is very interesting. It pushed me to read more about the psychology of Japan.

About your joke, i know it is a joke, but begs a question. It is my understanding that a person can either stay inside the country, or leave, but "leave and come back" would be more difficult if someone were related to the Setagaya murders. Am I wrong?

Since 2007 or 2008, a foreigner would not be able to get into Japan if he were the killer. More accurately, he would be able to get in but arrested immediately at the airport. If he were Japanese, I believe no such fingerprint checks are necessary.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

In the pictures, the Miyazawa and Irie homes look almost like a single building.

Is there any chance the killer thought he was breaking into one large house, rather than a small house with a close next-door neighbour?

That's a good question. Possible, perhaps. Though both houses evidently have different front doors and look like distinct homes when you're stood in front of them despite their proximity.

 

[Incoherent]

I have read about Japanese surgeons being taught to operate with both right and left hands (training to be ambidextrous, that is). I did not understand the goal of it as I was a kid at that time, but decided to learn to write equally well with both hands, too (I am a strong rightie). When my mom found out about it, she persuaded me to stop my experiments. (She didn't know much about brain wiring either but felt it was not a good Idea.)

Now, re-training lefties into righties is not great, but being ambidextrous might carry an advantage. I don't even know where I am trying to proceed with it, just some intuitively formed thought that has been bothering me. However, in US it would be easy to determine handedness of the murderer. But things might get complicated if the killer is a retrained leftie from Japan living elsewhere.

Imagine the Tokyo police determining that the killer was "likely a rightie". IRL, the murderer is born a leftie, but retrained. If he is indeed a foreigner and goes back home, where there is no pressure to conform, then, to reverse back to a true leftie might take some time, but it is not horribly difficult. So he might be a leftie now. Meanwhile in Japan, the police is still looking for "a rightie" killer.

Alternatively, imagine that he is retrained, but during murders, stress pulls out true handedness. So the wounds look as if inflicted by a leftie, but after murders, he carries on living the way he was retrained, as a rightie.

All of it might be pertinent if the murderer was born a leftie; worldwide, his chance is about 10%.

Anyhow, it would be interesting to see what the angle of the stabs showed.

Look at the geographic differences. Japan in the very bottom. What do you think it means? Probably, many were retrained at school...

Google Image Result for http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/20708.jpeg

The request to use the right hand comes from Japanese parents worrying about their children being different from others and also the writing system. It is more difficult to use the correct stroke order for kanji characters if you’re left handed, and there is a specific order Japanese must be written in as well as calligraphy. These are skills all Japanese kids need to learn and being a leftie makes your life much harder growing up here. It also produces a higher chance of your writing looking “wrong” and untidy.
However for a foreign kids here I highly doubt the parents care one bit.

Thank you. One of the questions you can answer firsthand. Do you happen to know if the street on which the Miyazawas' house stands has a formal name, or is it an agglomeration of house numbers but no street name?

Sure! I can answer this.
There are no street names in Japan like in the West.
A Japanese address is generally separated into several different parts (leaving out the country as the address is here)
1. The post code
2. The prefecture
3. The city or ward
4. The neighbourhood/district/block
5. The building name (if there is one)
6. The addressee’s name

In the case of the Miyazawa’s it would be written as so:

157-0065
Tokyo
Setagaya City
Kamoshigaya 3-23-26
Miyazawa Mikio

As you can see the Miyazawa’s lived in a house so it has no name. 3-23-26 denotes the 3rd district of Kamoshigaya, block 23-26, in Setagaya City, Tokyo prefecture.

It makes a lot more sense when written in Japanese but in English that is basically how a regular Japanese address looks. Japanese houses use nameplates or have their family names outside the house near the mailbox for ease of locating too, see here of a picture I snapped of the Miyazawa’s while back:



Everywhere in Japan has metal signs on almost every street lamps and electricity poles telling you exactly where you are in terms of city, neighbourhood, district, block, etc, so you won’t get lost and it’s easy to figure out where you are.

Here is a photo of one about 10 minutes away from the house when I was there the other week:




It says ここは上祖師谷1-13
Which in English is “you are in Kamisoshigaya 1st district block 13”

Hope this helps you!

 

[Incoherent]

Since 2007 or 2008, a foreigner would not be able to get into Japan if he were the killer. More accurately, he would be able to get in but arrested immediately at the airport. If he were Japanese, I believe no such fingerprint checks are necessary.

Correct here. Not needed if Japanese, but everyone else must have their finger prints taken before let through immigration. I arrived in 2009 and this was already happening.