Japan - Miyazawa family of 4 murdered, Setagaya, Tokyo, 30 Dec 2000 #3

[Sor Juana]

Apologies I meant about the killer being constrained to a 2 year assignment when the yearbook sources clearly show many kids being there multiple years, spanning into a decade. Which would mean their families and parents were there longer too.

I don’t think the killer was as young as 15 but I also don’t think he was only around for as little as 2 years either.

I've been looking for available information about life at Yokota Air Base and the terms of service and employment there. Military contracts are typically for 2 years, with occasional extensions to 3 years. However, labour contracts for construction and installation vary widely, ranging from 1 to 10 years. The legal framework governing these contracts is quite complex and not straightforward. Spouses of military personnel can be hired for certain non-military positions on fixed-term contracts, usually for 2 years, with the possibility of extension under specific conditions. I'll try to retrieve those links—I didn't save them initially, as they seemed too administrative and overwhelming.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

Thanks for the link. Here are my problems with this idea:

1) how do they determine his DNA being in those slippers in the past versus on the night of the murders?

2) is he just walking around Tokyo wearing slippers if he’s wearing them when visiting the Miyazawa house?

3) Having spent many, many hours interviewing the Chief of Seijo PD, why would he lie to me about the killer knowing / having been to Mikio’s house before? Clearly, this visitor would be the number one suspect. Yet they don’t talk about him. It’s a 13-year-old article so maybe it’s just going on a misunderstanding or rumour or previous thinking. But when they said they had no concrete suspects, it seemed very genuine.

I can't speak to the truthfulness of the Chief, but I think what the article is suggesting is that the slippers belonged to the Miyazawas, and that at some point the killer had politely changed out of his shoes into a pair of slippers provided by his hosts. Both his sweat and skin was supposedly found in the slippers.

The assumption that the killer wore them on a previous occasion probably came from the knowledge he didn't walk around the house in them on the night of the murder. There were no footprints in the blood from the slippers, and it doesn't sound like the slippers themselves were bloodstained. So if the killer did wear them on the night of the murders, he appears to have worn them *before* the carnage started.

 

[BatataPoha]

RSBM: So what you've eaten that day is an 'innate' indication of who you are? I drink barley tea and eat Japanese food while I'm in Japan. I'm not a huge drinker. I'm 40 and European. But the contents of my stomach would tell you I'm Japanese?

You seem to have missed this important line and a whole lot of context behind it.
Those choices are the killer’s innate choices, and that would indicate someone Japanese or a foreigner decently assimilated into the Japanese culture.

Also its weird to compare a 40 yr tourist to a 15-25 yr killer who kills an entire family. I highly doubt you can draw any meaningful inferences from that sort of comparison.

Unless as a force of habit, you usually land up in foreign countries, try out the local cuisine and then go on to murder an innocent family. I don’t think so and hence that comparison doesn’t hold much weight.

If you want to be in the killer’s shoes ( pun not intended), take yourself back to when you were 15-20 and had to give one of the most important exams of your life. You prepared for it for months, there is nervous anticipation of it. You don’t know how it will pan out, you don’t have the benefit of hindsight like the world has 24 yrs later.

Are you on that day, gonna go out and have an out of the ordinary meal before this all important exam? During the exam, when you are under severe stress, are you gonna have some weird drink you have never had before?

Quite unlikely. The dietary habit of a tourist does not indicate much. The dietary intake of someone under duress or stress does point to certain innate characteristics.

In this case, it would appear this was a Japanese guy, or a foreigner who was culturally well assimilated into the culture, and not some random jock foreigner who doesn’t speak Japanese and wears Nike.

 

[BatataPoha]

Re: slippers. Maybe the killer tried it out to see if they fit? After the murders?

 

[Janitor101]

Some random facts to consider:

View attachment 511537

1. Exits are monitored by security personnel who check identification and ensure only authorised individuals enter or leave.
2. In the Miyazawa family murder case, forensic analysis indicated that water used to launder the killer's clothes was "hard" water (hardness 121-180 mg/L). This was determined through the presence of a high concentration of minerals like calcium and magnesium in the water residues left on the clothing fibres.
3. Generally, Tokyo's tap water is considered "soft" to "moderate" (0 to 120mg/L)
4. The water softness at Yokota Air Base typically measures around 80 mg/L or approximately 4.7 grains per gallon, classifying it as "moderate" according to the general hardness scale. Drinking Water Quality Annual Report
5. Pets are restricted on the base by Yokota Housing (only with special permission). "FH residents are authorized to keep fish, caged birds, hamsters, guinea pigs, or gerbils in standard cages/containers (no more than three total)." "UH (dormitory) residents are authorized to keep fish, caged birds, hamsters, guinea pigs, or gerbils in standard cages/containers (no more than three total)." Yokota Housing

I didn't realise how far it was from the closest air force base to Setegaya. Maybe it takes less time by train?

Is there a curfew for teenagers at the Yokata air force base or are they able to come and go as they please?

 

[Janitor101]

What really bothers me is the feeling that the Miyazawas were stalked before the murders. It is as if several people organized it, but one executed. You then remove/kill that one and cut off all ties to the killers then…

I wonder if indeed, the kids, or at least, Rei, were unplanned victims to start with and the statue emerged as a “sorry” aftermath.

Now, if we assume that another person helped the murderer to get into the house (using the stronger man’s shoulders) and then left the murderer there? Is it feasible?

I wonder if the crime was random and no stalking or pre-planning was involved in this crime, how the killer would know how many people were in the Mirazawa house at that particular time? There could have been relatives and other kids visiting for the holidays who could have scattered/ran next door once he made his presence known.

 

[cenazoic]

Exits are monitored by security personnel who check identification and ensure only

I’ve been following this thread for bit, and while I don’t have any theories, I do have one life experience which might be clarifying in some ways. I’ve seen a number of posts making statements like the above as fact, when that was not my experience in a similar timeframe/location. (Not to pick on you, Sor Juana, this was just the most recent example! )

I was in the USAF in the ‘90s, and spent several years at Kadena AFB, in Okinawa. I arrived there as a 21-year old.

There were optional language classes, but mandatory cultural sensitivity trainings for incoming personnel. (The one thing I remember from that all these years later is that it’s rude to leave your chopsticks sticking upright in the rice. Also, slurping soup is showing appreciation.)

You might be checked/asked to show your military ID coming onto base, but you definitely were not ‘monitored’ by MPs on exiting the base.

Many people lived off base (although technically you had to be married to do so.) The reality was that I had friends who lived off base, and I (and many others) often spent days and even weeks at those friends’ places. These houses were generally in otherwise local Okinawan neighborhoods (ie, there wasn’t really an American enclave off-base).

As long as you showed up to do your job, nobody was keeping track of you. (And my job involved a Top Secret security clearance.)

Many, many leisure activities took place off base - bars, restaurants, beach parties, you name it.

I, and many other airmen, bought a car and/or motorcycle while there. It really didn’t take long to get used to driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road - it was more difficult adjusting when I got back to the States!

The NCO Club (sort of a restaurant/bar for enlisted people) served burgers and the like, but also many Japanese foods.

It doesn’t require any particular ‘patriotism’ to serve abroad - you go where you’re assigned.

People my age (and presumably younger, like minor dependents) were super into all things Japanese - brands, video games (always a big American crowd at the local arcades), foods, shops, experiences. The idea of ‘patriotic Americans’ being homesick for American brands/foods/etc doesn’t ring true to my experience.

Now, I didn’t have children and didn’t know anyone who did, so I can’t speak to any common experience there. However, if you get stationed abroad, your children are dependents (ie, the military will pay to move them, etc) only up to the age of 18.

To me, that piece speaks to a suspect, who, if they were a member of a US military family, almost has to be, say, 19 or younger.

Tangential aside- it’s interesting that apparently the Chief of TCMP didn’t/doesn’t see this as a ‘Japanese’ crime. To me, it doesn't ‘feel’ very American either (whatever that means)!

 

[BatataPoha]

I’ve been following this thread for bit, and while I don’t have any theories, I do have one life experience which might be clarifying in some ways. I’ve seen a number of posts making statements like the above as fact, when that was not my experience in a similar timeframe/location. (Not to pick on you, Sor Juana, this was just the most recent example! )

I was in the USAF in the ‘90s, and spent several years at Kadena AFB, in Okinawa. I arrived there as a 21-year old.

There were optional language classes, but mandatory cultural sensitivity trainings for incoming personnel. (The one thing I remember from that all these years later is that it’s rude to leave your chopsticks sticking upright in the rice. Also, slurping soup is showing appreciation.)

You might be checked/asked to show your military ID coming onto base, but you definitely were not ‘monitored’ by MPs on exiting the base.

Many people lived off base (although technically you had to be married to do so.) The reality was that I had friends who lived off base, and I (and many others) often spent days and even weeks at those friends’ places. These houses were generally in otherwise local Okinawan neighborhoods (ie, there wasn’t really an American enclave off-base).

As long as you showed up to do your job, nobody was keeping track of you. (And my job involved a Top Secret security clearance.)

Many, many leisure activities took place off base - bars, restaurants, beach parties, you name it.

I, and many other airmen, bought a car and/or motorcycle while there. It really didn’t take long to get used to driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road - it was more difficult adjusting when I got back to the States!

The NCO Club (sort of a restaurant/bar for enlisted people) served burgers and the like, but also many Japanese foods.

It doesn’t require any particular ‘patriotism’ to serve abroad - you go where you’re assigned.

People my age (and presumably younger, like minor dependents) were super into all things Japanese - brands, video games (always a big American crowd at the local arcades), foods, shops, experiences. The idea of ‘patriotic Americans’ being homesick for American brands/foods/etc doesn’t ring true to my experience.

Now, I didn’t have children and didn’t know anyone who did, so I can’t speak to any common experience there. However, if you get stationed abroad, your children are dependents (ie, the military will pay to move them, etc) only up to the age of 18.

To me, that piece speaks to a suspect, who, if they were a member of a US military family, almost has to be, say, 19 or younger.

Tangential aside- it’s interesting that apparently the Chief of TCMP didn’t/doesn’t see this as a ‘Japanese’ crime. To me, it doesn't ‘feel’ very American either (whatever that means)!

Pretty good insights. This has been backed by @FacelessPodcast to some degree as well.

To add to your theory, not only do I think he was of that age, but he was being moved to someplace in that time period, which is why he was so confident of leaving his stuff behind.

 

[cenazoic]

One more thing I just thought about.

It’s hard to believe that a young (or any age) person who could kill 4 people, including 2 small children, quickly, and then blithely remain in the house for some time, eating, rooting around, using the bathroom - did not also display some sort of ‘troubling behaviors’ at home.

Here’s the thing that occurred to me. You can get in real (legal) trouble in the military for things that civilians generally don’t - adultery (bad example, this was pretty rampant, but theoretically you could be prosecuted for this under the UCMJ, the code of law governing military personnel), bankruptcy, drinking too much, and other behaviors that might fall under the heading of ‘morality clauses’.

A child with ‘troubling behaviors’ could make the service member’s professional life difficult. You’re expected to handle your problems and definitely not allow them to reflect poorly on the military.

I don’t know how the military would have handled this, if this theoretical minor had been brought to military doctors (in Japan or the US).

I can say that in 2005, i was diagnosed with ADHD by a doctor at my local VA (I was out of the service by then.) The VA recognized ADHD as a ‘real’ diagnosis, but had virtually no real way to treat it. Ritalin and the like were even then recognized as legit treatments, but the VA wasn’t allowed to prescribe that class of drugs. (They tried me on Wellbutrin, which is an anti-depressant, to no effect.). So I suspect if this person was ever seen by military psychiatrists, the doctors would have had few tools with which to effectively treat them (assuming some sort of mental health dx).

This has gotten a bit disjointed as I struggle to bring threads of thought together, sorry.

I suppose after all this rambling, I’m curious about how and why Nic zeroed in on the specific person he did. Like, it can be difficult to discern who the actual service-members were at a given installation, especially at such a time remove, let alone their children. How did Nic find Minor X to begin with?

 

[Charlot123]

I’ve been following this thread for bit, and while I don’t have any theories, I do have one life experience which might be clarifying in some ways. I’ve seen a number of posts making statements like the above as fact, when that was not my experience in a similar timeframe/location. (Not to pick on you, Sor Juana, this was just the most recent example! )

I was in the USAF in the ‘90s, and spent several years at Kadena AFB, in Okinawa. I arrived there as a 21-year old.

There were optional language classes, but mandatory cultural sensitivity trainings for incoming personnel. (The one thing I remember from that all these years later is that it’s rude to leave your chopsticks sticking upright in the rice. Also, slurping soup is showing appreciation.)

You might be checked/asked to show your military ID coming onto base, but you definitely were not ‘monitored’ by MPs on exiting the base.

Many people lived off base (although technically you had to be married to do so.) The reality was that I had friends who lived off base, and I (and many others) often spent days and even weeks at those friends’ places. These houses were generally in otherwise local Okinawan neighborhoods (ie, there wasn’t really an American enclave off-base).

As long as you showed up to do your job, nobody was keeping track of you. (And my job involved a Top Secret security clearance.)

Many, many leisure activities took place off base - bars, restaurants, beach parties, you name it.

I, and many other airmen, bought a car and/or motorcycle while there. It really didn’t take long to get used to driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road - it was more difficult adjusting when I got back to the States!

The NCO Club (sort of a restaurant/bar for enlisted people) served burgers and the like, but also many Japanese foods.

It doesn’t require any particular ‘patriotism’ to serve abroad - you go where you’re assigned.

People my age (and presumably younger, like minor dependents) were super into all things Japanese - brands, video games (always a big American crowd at the local arcades), foods, shops, experiences. The idea of ‘patriotic Americans’ being homesick for American brands/foods/etc doesn’t ring true to my experience.

Now, I didn’t have children and didn’t know anyone who did, so I can’t speak to any common experience there. However, if you get stationed abroad, your children are dependents (ie, the military will pay to move them, etc) only up to the age of 18.

To me, that piece speaks to a suspect, who, if they were a member of a US military family, almost has to be, say, 19 or younger.

Tangential aside- it’s interesting that apparently the Chief of TCMP didn’t/doesn’t see this as a ‘Japanese’ crime. To me, it doesn't ‘feel’ very American either (whatever that means)!

Thank you very much! Exactly the person who I wanted to ask about cultural sensitivity training and cultures!

I must admit - what I am going to post is not my idea, and it ought to have been mine, because I had similar experience in Korea.

About being a foreigner...I am thinking about multifunctional toilet seats in Japan, with dozens of functions, that made way here rather recently and that you have to know how to use unless you speak the language...and anyhow, you do need to know the language as they are all different. In a Seoul museum, there were only Korean letters and pictures of functions. Trying to be polite served me poorly, and there was no one to ask as the museum was closing.

So, I know they are everywhere in public places but someone I spoke to pointed out that as in Japan, in cramped spaces, toilet might be your "privacy", these toilets might have well been installed in Miyazawa's house in 2000 and the "visitor" who didn't know how to use it which immediately bespoke a foreigner. As not cleaning after yourself is a no-no in Japan.

So my first question is, did you see these toulilets in Japan in 2000 and did you see them in Japanese houses? Or can we assume that the Miyazawas, being not poor, could have afforded them?

Because if they were commonplace in Japan of 2000, problems with using them or reading kanji and not flushing would immediately bespeak "a foreigner", IMHO.

 

[penelopeb]

How did Nic find Minor X to begin with?

Hey @cenazoic! Thank you for your insights

If I remember correctly, someone who was affiliated with Yokota and Minor X listened to the podcast and approached Nic about him. Minor X was noticed with injuries to his hand and was shipped out pretty quickly after Dec 2000, among other coincidences that would make him a person of interest in the crime.

As to the theory, one of the most significant clues imo is that the perp is a student and yet TMPD has not found him in 24 years despite their diligence. If he’s Japanese somebody would have noticed something and come forward. But they haven’t because the TMPD couldn’t get to him, and to me that points to one of the air bases around the area. Also the sand of course.

I know that’s controversial here but a quick google search on where sand in hourglasses come from yields a result like this: Pulverized eggshell, marble and metal oxides often were combined to create the “sand” used for hourglasses, as well as a variety of other mixtures. Today, most sand clocks are filled with tiny glass beads, called ballotini. The shape of the beads allows for even flow through the narrow aperture of the hourglass.

Stress balls? Here’s what google had to say about what’s inside them: The inner materials in stress balls vary. It can be a thick or thin liquid gel-like substance, a powdery substance, gel beads, water beads, or a combination of these materials.

So not sand. Truly the simplest explanation is to accept the link to Edwards air base (and the science that makes that link). So by Occam’s razor, I have.

 

[WhoDisDoe]

Minor X was noticed with injuries to his hand and was shipped out pretty quickly after Dec 2000

I actually went back through the old threads recently to find the moment when @FacelessPodcast first mentioned his POI. He said a lawyer based in Asia reached out to him after listening to the podcast. As far as I could tell, he didn’t disclose the lawyer’s reasons for suspecting this specific individual.

As for the hand injuries, what you said is quite possible - I just wasn’t able to find a post where Nic mentioned it. The first mention of hand injuries came when Nic showed very-zoomed-in pictures of the POI’s hand, asking if others saw the scarring too or he was just seeing what he wanted to see (the zoom resolution was pretty blurry).

That said, this was all before he’d interviewed anyone from Yokota. It’s quite possible he later discovered the POI had hand injuries at the time he was shipped out, and I just missed that post.

 

[penelopeb]

I think most of us have theorized that the killer was watching the Miyazawas prior to the murders. He couldn’t have been directly connected to them because the TMPD would have found him by now. So he encountered them randomly somehow.

There are two options here: either he was already in Setagaya when he encountered them/their house OR he followed them home from somewhere.

Let’s say he was already in Setagaya.

One of the theories I’m exploring is that there was a USAF family living off-base in Setagaya that was connected to the killer and his family. On one of these visits, the killer encountered the Miyazawa house and family.

The biggest problem with this is that it seems like Tachikawa/Fussa is the preferred area that USAF folks wanting to live off base gravitate towards. Setagaya is more residential and family oriented, and also further away from base.

@cenazoic question for you: I was reading some old posts on Reddit that said if you are married and have dependents you are forced to live on base. Is this true and if so in what circumstances could that not apply? Basically I’m wondering how anyone connected to the USAF would end up in Setagaya.

 

[fridaybaker]

This idea of the student/killer shipping out pretty quickly after the murders is what I was trying to get at in an earlier post, although I probably didn’t express it well.

It just seems to me that if rage at a humiliation, or some experience triggered him to kill the family, it would be fairly coincidental for it to happen so close to him being shipped out. I was wondering, especially considering that the thought is that his father was maybe quite “high-ranking”, if the father could have REQUESTED to be shipped out at that time. Does anyone have any idea if this is possible? For someone to request a different post mid-assignment?

As Incoherent says above, many of the students are at Yokota for years- from elementary school through high school. Yes this student’s parent was apparently shipped out right after the murders…

 

[Incoherent]

Thanks for your input and information here @cenazoic, very interesting!

 

[cenazoic]

if you are married and have dependents you are forced to live on base. Is this true and if so in what circumstances could that not apply?

It was not true at Kadena AFB, Okinawa, in the ‘90s. I have no reason to believe it would have been different at Yokota (I may try to reach out to some old mates and see if they have any insight.) But basically, at Kadena, some people got married just so they could live off base! Families with kids did as well.

One thing I’m curious about - there were (and are) a LOT of US military bases in mainland Japan (and Okinawa). How did Yokota become the base of interest - the sand? If that’s the case, there’s no reason to limit suspects to AF members - we all generally had access to other service’s installations, so the suspect’s father could have been Navy, Marines, or Army (least common service in Japan). Navy pilots were common at Edwards, too.

it would be fairly coincidental for it to happen so close to him being shipped out. I was wondering, especially considering that the thought is that his father was maybe quite “high-ranking”, if the father could have REQUESTED to be shipped out at that time.

Of course, one can request, but whether you’d be granted that request mid-duty is another question. I’m shakier on the doings of officers, but in general I’d be inclined to believe it would be more difficult for them, not less. You’re generally assigned somewhere for a specified length of time. So for a ‘high ranking officer’ to suddenly leave, there would need to be someone of equivalent rank/expertise to take his place, and the higher you go, the less of those people there are.

That said, your question does raise the possibility that this theoretical child of a service member could have deliberately timed the murder to correspond with the parent’s separation or leave date.

Edit: I just saw your comment about it being too ‘coincidental’ for the murder to have occurred right before leaving - you generally know the date of your transfer well in advance.

 

[cenazoic]

So my first question is, did you see these toulilets in Japan in 2000 and did you see them in Japanese houses?

Oh,that’s an interesting thought!

So, I was in Okinawa rather than ‘mainland’ Japan. Naha -> Tokyo is about 1000 miles by plane. Without getting too in the weeds, when I was there, I had the impression that the mainlanders thought of the Okinawans as a sort of red-headed stepchildren/‘country cousins’ (ie less sophisticated) and the Okinawans had their own old culture and identity that diverged somewhat from that of Honshu.

All that to say, I did not see the fancy toilets/bidets in Okinawa, but I did see the open pit latrines that were still in fairly common use back then.

 

[Charlot123]

What We Really Know About the Setagaya Family Murder?

One of the most infamous cold cases in Japan has turned 20

medium.com

Inside the blog there is (already posted) video of An Irie walking the press through the Miyazawas house. The toilet looks new, but I don't see the famed multifunctional seat.

This is an article from Japan Today. I liked the comment stating, politely, what I have been thinking - that the people of Japan tend to compartmentalize their personal lives more than Europeans do, and there could be a personal element that the police never made public.

Setagaya family murders remain unsolved 23 years later

Police have renewed their appeal for any information from the public that might help solve the murders of a family of four in the house in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward 23 years ago. Last week, police handed out flyers appealing for information at Seijogakuenmae train station, as they have done each…

japantoday.com

 

[CatInTheHat7]

What We Really Know About the Setagaya Family Murder?

One of the most infamous cold cases in Japan has turned 20

medium.com

Inside the blog there is (already posted) video of An Irie walking the press through the Miyazawas house. The toilet looks new, but I don't see the famed multifunctional seat.

Looks like a regular toilet with a chrome flusher lever and an ‘aftermarket’ bidet added to it to make it like the modern multifunction toilets.

 

[Charlot123]

Looks like a regular toilet with a chrome flusher lever and an ‘aftermarket’ bidet added to it to make it like the modern multifunction toilets.
View attachment 511813

Yes, it is not the situation when anyone would have problems flushing it, be it a foreigner or a Japanese person. Only a person who never used a flush toilet would have a problem using it. More likely, the person was in a dazed state and his actions were automatic. I think he dissociated afterwards, and maybe came to his senses after sleep.