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

[Cryptic]

In these cases… what if we switched the idea of ‘US serviceman’ to ‘son of a serviceman’, and ‘man’ to ‘teenager’ that was in school on the base. In your opinion, would that change any of your outlooks here?

Thanks for your reply!

Son of a serviceman would largely mirror the average serviceman. There are some exceptions, however.

A. "Homesteading" serviceman parent: Most of these are married to locals and have managed to extend their service tours (hard to do as the military needs to balance rotations and....perhaps deep down inside, Uncle Sam does not like US servicemen getting in too close to foreign societies to avoid conflict of interest problems.

B. Son of a contractor: There are alot of both local and US contractors on bases. Everythng from specialized technicians to store clerks to computer specialists. They are far more free to renew contracts than US serviceman can extend tours.

Given that there are alot of "Bs", lets look at the fictitious Daniel Cho....

- Daniel is of Korean descent and is the son of Eun "Edward" Cho". Form birth, Daniel was aggressive and alot of avoidable drama problems in school soon followed.

- Following a difficult divorce, Edward takes IT position in Japan with the US airforce. Maybe he was disenchanted with some aspects of US culture and their effect on Daniel. Maybe he wanted a fresh start. Maybe a little bit of both.

- The move, however, did not improve Daniel's attitude. Repeated discipline problems, poor grades, fights continue in school. Daniel drops the football team- never a team player. Daniel then gravitates to wrestling- and does well- though his coach is getting tired of his "baggage".

- Daniel and his father live off base. His father's position as a contractor, however, gives Daniel full access to the base and he attends school there.

- Had Daniel been inclined to philospophic thought, he would see that he is different than most Americans at the base. Living off base has led to Daniel being comfortable in non tourist / entertainment areas. Daniel has developed a proficiency in Japanese. He buys clothes on the Japanese market. Whether from personal reference or simple convenience from living off base, Daniel is not on a pork chop and mash potatoes diet.

- Daniel also has a habit of roaming the city in a perpetually angry state of mind. One day, he has an encounter with the victim....

 

[Charlot123]

Evidently, the killer purchased a knife before the attack in which the vendor did not notice any language limitations. Granted, it could have been a limited exchange. But, the killer evidently also accessed the victim's computer- presumably the computer used Japanese fonts. Thus, the ability to read Japanese.

The food argument is a component of a totality. And.... your use of absolute language ("Americans") is not accurate. "some" Americans regularly eat a variety of ethnic foods. Others, however, do not. Some American criminals would select ethnic foods from a victim's kitchen. Others, however, would not.

RSFB - I think that he lost some energy during this attack, and probably, got agitated. So he ate ice cream, which was cold and sweet, to calm down. I suspect he has "a sweet tooth" and sugary food could be more calming for him than string beans. It would be more interesting to see what he didn't eat. The Miyazawas were preparing for the NY, probably had nice things...