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

[Sor Juana]

I believe there was a big connection between Mikio and his love for animation that I read over the threads, but as for the Ghibli museum nearby it did not open until the end of 2001… I am a very big fan of those movies myself and it’s a place on my bucket list to visit, but in relation to this case unfortunately the family were dead before it was opened.

RSBM
Corrected in #630. The quote was from the wrong link.

 

[Incoherent]

Yeah you're spot on here. It isn't the same as some middle ages European monastery. Most of the "monks" at Japanese temples are actually regular people who devote some of their free time to helping maintain the temple and perform some of the rituals. And there is also a big difference between temples and larger shrines which often does not come across on English Google Maps.

Funnily enough, there is a case of a Japanese serial killer taking refuge in a temple complex. He convinced a monk that he was a lawyer and wanted to help an appeal the monk was working on. This monk was married with two kids. One of his daughters recognized the man from a wanted poster and told her father, who then alerted the police.

So the idea of the faceless man fleeing to a temple and somehow disappearing by being taken into to some monastic community is not realistic at all.

My ENT doctor is a monk on the weekends actually, he’s a really cool guy and tells me about what he does while looking deep into my nasal passages. If you ever need a great ENT let me know haha.

 

[TokyoSleuth]

Wrongdoers don saffron robes to conceal their crimes .


Thailand. The Somkid Pumpuang case. Known as the "Jack the Ripper of Thailand," Somkid Pumpuang was a serial killer convicted of murdering five women in 2005. After being released from prison on parole, he committed another murder in 2019. During his time on the run, he disguised himself as a monk and sought refuge in a temple, blending in with the monastic community.
Sri Lanka. The Wasantha Karunaratne case. Karunaratne was involved in a series of violent crimes, including murder.
He fled to a remote Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka, where he lived for several months disguised as a monk. He was eventually discovered and apprehended by the authorities.

Some 19 Buddhist monks arrested, hiding from their criminal past

As alluded to above, comparisons in this sense with Thailand and Sri Lanka are not helpful. Buddhism is a philosophy which took on forms of religions in each country it spread to. The way Buddhism functions in Japan is entirely different to how it functions in SE Asia, South Asia, and Tibet. As indeed does the way temples and monasteries are run and maintained. It is the equivalent of comparing the situation of a pre-reformation English monastic community, with members of a small town American church community who volunteer free time to help with events and times of importance.

As I mentioned, most people working in such places in Japan do so in their spare time alongside other jobs in society, with only a couple of people based there full time. Most of them have families and function more like a village vicar or town pastor does in the UK or USA. In the example I referred to, the killer only managed to avoid detection for one day before being recognized. Even then, he was there under the pretense of helping a monk with a legal case, not trying to blend in as a monk.

Not trying to discredit your opinions or evident hard work and care about this, but just want to clear this up as knowing how these places function in communities here, it just isn't a possibility.

 

[Sor Juana]

Cuts to the offender's own hand--unintentional self-infliction in the course of knife attacks - PubMed

In a knife attack the perpetrator can unintentionally injure his own hand, if the knife does not have an adequate handguard and the tip of the blade hits a solid, mostly bony structure while being violently thrust into the victim's body. The injuries occurring under these conditions are...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Just wanted to add why I think the cut was made with a reverse-edge-in grip. The killer used his fists or something else to hit the women. If the cut had been on the internal side of the fingers, he wouldn’t have been able to do it. With the cut on his palm, he could continue to attack. JMO.

 

[Sor Juana]

As alluded to above, comparisons in this sense with Thailand and Sri Lanka are not helpful. Buddhism is a philosophy which took on forms of religions in each country it spread to. The way Buddhism functions in Japan is entirely different to how it functions in SE Asia, South Asia, and Tibet. As indeed does the way temples and monasteries are run and maintained. It is the equivalent of comparing the situation of a pre-reformation English monastic community, with members of a small town American church community who volunteer free time to help with events and times of importance.

As I mentioned, most people working in such places in Japan do so in their spare time alongside other jobs in society, with only a couple of people based there full time. Most of them have families and function more like a village vicar or town pastor does in the UK or USA. In the example I referred to, the killer only managed to avoid detection for one day before being recognized. Even then, he was there under the pretense of helping a monk with a legal case, not trying to blend in as a monk.

Not trying to discredit your opinions or evident hard work and care about this, but just want to clear this up as knowing how these places function in communities here, it just isn't a possibility.

Could you provide some supporting information for your statement? For instance, how do Zen or Shinto-influenced Buddhism practices address the issue of a criminal seeking refuge within temple grounds (that is not allowing it), compared to Theravada Buddhist temples in Thailand?

As of recent estimates, there are approximately 40,000-50,000 Buddhist monks in Japan. Out of them, 10-20% live on-site. The data is current, but I would assume that in 2000, the percentage was no less, and likely more.

Large Zen temples, such as those in the Rinzai and Soto schools, may have around 10-30 monks living on-site full time. Examples also include Eiheiji Temple and Sojiji Temple, which are major training monasteries with large resident communities. Shingon temples, like Koyasan, can also have a number of resident monks often in the range of 10-20 monks. Medium-sized temples may have 3-10 monks living full time, and small temples 1-3 monks. Training monasteries associated with specific Buddhist schools often have more monks living on-site due to their rigorous training programs. In Tokyo, Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa and Zojo-ji Temple in Minato have 3-10 monks living on-site. Setagaya hosts 4 temples with monks living there, in small numbers though.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Thomas Edison, 19th century.

 

[Hausos]

There's plenty of ads for pads on Japanese television. I think it's reasonable to associate pads with blood. It's possible he could have just been rummaging around the bathroom and its drawers and saw the pads. Even if he didn't know what a pad was, perhaps the pads were in a box (I keep mine in the original box they comes in), and saw the obvious depiction of it and assumed it would help his bleeding.

On a personal note, my teenage brother (16+) definitely knew what pads were. Did he find them gross and uncomfortable to talk about? yeah. But he knew that women bled and used pads for the bleeding. jmo/anecdotal.

Japan is definitely more of a pad country. I assume the vast, vast majority of household has pads or has had them at one point if there's a woman present. "According to a 2022 survey, 75.5% of Japanese respondents use sanitary pads daily during their period, while only 2.8% use tampons daily."

I assume two decades back, pads were probably even more popular.

 

[Sor Juana]

Life in a Japanese Buddhist Monastery

Buddhist temple sites contained (and still do today, of course) a multitude of buildings, each with a specific function and all contained within a particular area. There are buildings for worship, meetings, prayers, training, to house relics and artworks and all living quarters and facilities necessary for the monks' daily needs. Prior to the medieval period, it was considered auspicious to have a particular arrangement and number of buildings within a complex, but this idea gave way to the practical consideration of meeting the needs of the monastic community.

When not meditating, monks are otherwise occupied in such tasks as studying religious texts, performing necessary labour tasks such as cleaning, gardening, and food cultivation or asking for alms from the outside local community. For temples which are popular tourist attractions, monks may be on hand to help visitors and act as guides. Meals are communal and often taken in silence.

A typical day of a modern Zen Buddhist monk is as follows:

4 am Wake up
4.10 - 5 am Sutra chanting
5- 7 am Zazen and interview with abbot
7 am Breakfast of rice gruel, salted plum, and pickles.
8 - 10.50 am Cleaning and work duties
11 am Lunch, typically barley rice, miso soup, cooked vegetable, and pickled radish
1 - 3.50 pm Work duty
4 pm Light meal similar to lunch
5 - 8.30 pm Zazen and interview with abbot
9 pm Lights out
9 - 11 pm Night sitting.

Sleep Like a Monk: Temple Stays in Japan

 

[Charlot123]

Just wanted to add why I think the cut was made with a reverse-edge-in grip. The killer used his fists or something else to hit the women. If the cut had been on the internal side of the fingers, he wouldn’t have been able to do it. With the cut on his palm, he could continue to attack. JMO.

We don't know if he used his hands. Horrible to write, but could have used his feet as well. ((( In fact, given that he was taller than women, it is possible. How much anger did a person need to have.

 

[FlowersInBloom]

We don't know if he used his hands. Horrible to write, but could have used his feet as well. ((( In fact, given that he was taller than women, it is possible. How much anger did a person need to have.

Both of them were lying down on the floor at the top of the stairs too, and I also just recall saying Niina had been “beaten” but not how. Perhaps the killer kicked her repeatedly in the face once she had been stabbed and was lying down? Sorry for the awful visuals here… but I agree perhaps it was not his fists that he used…

 

[Charlot123]

I agree with you. I’ve also read up on lots and lots of crime/murder cases in Japan. I feel like the killer here isn’t that much different from other killers. There have even been young adults in Japan who’ve killed or helped killed and when given their sentences they’ve said things like “don’t care” or smiled and yelled something crazy like “Merry Christmas!”

If you go on the darker corners of the Japanese internet you’ll see people writing things like “I’m so mad, I want to stab someone”. Or Japanese 2channers talking about how they want to go on stabbing sprees. Morbid, and likely trolls, but there’s certainly something to it.

Just feel that with everything considered, including the possible motive, the killer still feels so Japanese to me. (US military have certainly committed crimes in Japan but the vast majority of them are either sexually related, burglaries/stealing, or car accidents resulting in someone’s death).

Also, Faceless releasing his podcast in Japanese would be AMAZING. Would love to hear their thoughts regarding the podcast and new theories surrounding the case. Keeping interest alive in this case is so, so important. Maybe the Japanese can advocate for some change regarding the DNA laws (doubt it but maybe the government can make an exception for serious crimes?)

All of the above is my opinion, ofc.

I have a question - to you and to anyone who's aware of Japanese mentality.

I can imagine how a killer like this would look like; but I can't say that they don't stand out. They do, although it is impossible to predict what they'd do.

So I assume that the killer ought to have stood out in a way. I can imagine an outgoing, social and charming man still being capable of such behavior (Eric Harris looked rather charming), but it is not the most typical situation. Yet I assume that he is Japanese, and avoided capture by not standing out at all. Meaning, being like every average Japanese man. Total outliers are scrutinized and rejected by the community, and an outlier with scarred hands would cause questions.

So what do you think is protecting him from being paid attention to? Is he not what we think he is? Or, is he masking too well due to high, not low, IQ? Does he have parents who are so protective that they normalize and conceal his behavior? Is he in some mental institution or a group setting? Or did he commit suicide?

 

[Charlot123]

Both of them were lying down on the floor at the top of the stairs too, and I also just recall saying Niina had been “beaten” but not how. Perhaps the killer kicked her repeatedly in the face once she had been stabbed and was lying down? Sorry for the awful visuals here… but I agree perhaps it was not his fists that he used…

You know, I can imagine the mother, in a desperate attempt to protect her child, getting double strength. If she were taller, she could go for his eyes, but as I can imagine, the Miyazawas were on a smaller side, and the attacker, taller. But maybe Niina, seeing that her mother was attacked, tried to reciprocate in some way, too, maybe bite him, or something like it. He could have merely thrown her away, like a kitten, and maybe just kicked to incapacitate, then killed the mother and finished with Niina. I think they were no match to him. Also, this is why I can't rule out him being an animal attacker; the posters were writing about kicking dogs, and maybe he didn't write, but was the visitor of the boards? Also, is it possible that he would come to attack animals in the park by the evening, as in daytime there were people around, and one night, having not found an animal, he progressed with the humans from the house next to the park? I have a feeling he might have been carrying a skateboard with him, as it gave him the reason to come to the park, but it was more of a decoy. This could be another reason for people not to pay attention to him, a skateboarder, no big deal, daytime or evening. He probably crossed the park to get back home, and he probably did have a board. Maybe at home, he explained the bloodied hand by falling off the board?

Also, on the skateboard, could he get home sooner? Was he less noticeable?

 

[Charlot123]

Could you provide some supporting information for your statement? For instance, how do Zen or Shinto-influenced Buddhism practices address the issue of a criminal seeking refuge within temple grounds (that is not allowing it), compared to Theravada Buddhist temples in Thailand?

As of recent estimates, there are approximately 40,000-50,000 Buddhist monks in Japan. Out of them, 10-20% live on-site. The data is current, but I would assume that in 2000, the percentage was no less, and likely more.

Large Zen temples, such as those in the Rinzai and Soto schools, may have around 10-30 monks living on-site full time. Examples also include Eiheiji Temple and Sojiji Temple, which are major training monasteries with large resident communities. Shingon temples, like Koyasan, can also have a number of resident monks often in the range of 10-20 monks. Medium-sized temples may have 3-10 monks living full time, and small temples 1-3 monks. Training monasteries associated with specific Buddhist schools often have more monks living on-site due to their rigorous training programs. In Tokyo, Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa and Zojo-ji Temple in Minato have 3-10 monks living on-site. Setagaya hosts 4 temples with monks living there, in small numbers though.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Thomas Edison, 19th century.

What happens if a man comes to a Japanese Buddhist temple and explains that he’d like to spend a few days, fasting, meditating and keeping silence? I’d expect them just to show him a quiet place and let him be. In fact, most monasteries would respond the same way. They’d probably just leave some water for him and that’s it. In this cases, natural human curiosity gives way to respect for a person that has made a vow, or is guided by some higher idea, whatever way you put it.

Now, if a professional moonlights as a priest, he comes home and reads newspapers. But for monks who live in the temple, the latest news might come with a 1-2 days of delay, and in the meantime, he’d be gone.

I don’t think that it is the highest possibility, but it may not be totally unlikely. I don’t think we have to compare different paths of Buddhism, because tbh, in a Christian monastery, the reaction would be exactly the same. There is no privacy more respected than between a man and his God.

Today, I am thinking that skateboarding later than the most at the Setagaya park is a possibility. He had some board tape in his bag and he wasn’t remembered by other boarders, meaning, he was not the part of their group. I looked up different posts about evening skating - many people find it calming; I don’t quite buy it but I think that 1) perhaps, our perpetrator is nocturnal; 2) he is not the best skateboarder, so training alone would be easier; 3) many mentioned that in Tokyo, the police would pick nighttime skateboarders unless they skate in the park; 4) the park, as many posted here, was well-lit. 5) if indeed there were maimed animals found in the park and no one saw the perpetrator, perhaps he did it in the evening.

@Sor Juana, if you are interested in the perp profile, I wonder if he has nocturnal circadian rhythm. That would allow him to stay undetected, especially if he now works at night. He could be a garbage man, a stacker, have a shift work in a port or at any assembly line. He has to avoid being fingerprinted but for some jobs, it is easy, He can work at a graveyard. I don’t know if he ever graduated, perhaps not, but staying with parents and working at night is a perfect way to be under any radar. People know him, maybe know he’s odd, but he leaves for work every night, so no one thinks of him twice. There are nocturnal cities (Barcelona), but Tokyo, probably, is merely “evening enough”? That’s actually an easy way. He can become a pest exterminator, too.

 

[BatataPoha]

Lots of good discussions here, so let me chime in.

1) First a small correction, someone here said that 750 mil of blood loss could precipitate or cause a hemorrhagic shock. As I am a doctor I can confidently say that that is incorrect in a normal adult.

The blood loss during a normal delivery is around 500 ml, during a Caeserean is around 1L and there is no shock over there. The human body can easily survive a loss of about 30% of total blood volume (roughly 1.5L) before the blood pressure even starts dropping.

Just for reference - https://www.researchgate.net/figure...fication-of-Haemorrhagic-Shock_tbl1_303541381

Personally I don’t believe the blood loss was more than 500-1000 ml at most, athough thats just my guess work.

2] Military man lacking knifing skills.

That can be a correct premise, but I doubt that a military man would be so underconfident that he wouldn’t take on a little girl and an injured lady without a second knife.

Not to mention the very poor choice of attacking bony structures instead of the abdomen, and the choice of the knife and its lack of guard.

The grappling is very messy despite all the advantages the killer had. It doesn’t speak military to me JMO.

 

[BatataPoha]

Lets come back to the injuries and the sanitary pads.

I am a doctor who has worked with a lot of degloving injury and industrial accident patients, so let me chime in a bit drawing from that.

The killer’s injuries are self inflicted, presumably the first time it happens is when he hits Mikio’s skull as Sor Juana pointed it out.

Now flash forward to after he has killed everyone.

He is bleeding, he used the first aid kit but finds that inadequate.

That tells us -either extensive soft tissue injury, inadequate epithelial cover, a grossly contaminated wound, a strange kind of wound configuration or cut to a significant artery or some mixture of all of the above.

However if he had extensive soft tissue injury, I find it hard to believe that he could have controlled his bleeding later simply by using the absorptive properties of a pad.

Same with the arterial nick, if it was major it could not have been controlled by the killer, and if it was minor, then he needed sustained pressure to help form the clot in the artery, and using a sanitary pad over hankies or any other form of ligature seems suboptimal to me.

So the more likely outcomes are - inadequate skin cover, grossly contaminated wound or a strange kind of wound configuration or all of the above.

So just looking at this -

1) Dumb luck he went to the bathroom to clean the contaminated wound and found the pads - STRONG POSSIBILITY, INSANELY GOOD LUCK for THE KILLER.

2) he went into the bathroom looking for the pads - also a reasonably strong possibility.

 

[Hausos]

I have a question - to you and to anyone who's aware of Japanese mentality.

I can imagine how a killer like this would look like; but I can't say that they don't stand out. They do, although it is impossible to predict what they'd do.

So I assume that the killer ought to have stood out in a way. I can imagine an outgoing, social and charming man still being capable of such behavior (Eric Harris looked rather charming), but it is not the most typical situation. Yet I assume that he is Japanese, and avoided capture by not standing out at all. Meaning, being like every average Japanese man. Total outliers are scrutinized and rejected by the community, and an outlier with scarred hands would cause questions.

So what do you think is protecting him from being paid attention to? Is he not what we think he is? Or, is he masking too well due to high, not low, IQ? Does he have parents who are so protective that they normalize and conceal his behavior? Is he in some mental institution or a group setting? Or did he commit suicide?

Hi! I just want to clarify that I am not Japanese and neither am I as well acquainted to the Japanese culture as someone who has been living there for several years/decades/from birth. I have only been to Japan twice (two month trip and a seven month stay). I do have Japanese friends and have spoken with many Japanese people.

The average Japanese person is reserved, respectful, and very conformist. The average Japanese person strives to avoid conflict as much as possible. Speaking from my own personal experiences.

There are many cases in Japan in which the preparator commits a serious crime and then never re-offends again. Given our prep's assumed young age, he may have been scared by all the media coverage and vowed to never commit a crime again so he can stay under the radar. He may even be thinking how dumb he was during the murders and how he would have done things differently. JMO.

Or as others suggest, he may have simply flown out of the country at one point altogether. (Speculation).

In regards to Japanese parents, a lot do shelter and conceal the mistakes of their children. Something I just thought about when you mentioned that is the problem of elderly Japanese folks still housing their unemployed/'hikikomori' children. Google the 80/50 problem in Japan, where you'll have 80 year old seniors taking care of their 50 year old offspring.

As for your other questions, there are honestly so many possibilities. I strongly lean towards him still being in Japan and living a relatively "normal" life. Perhaps he is the only one who is aware of his sins, and his parents have no clue. (JMO).

 

[BatataPoha]

Both of them were lying down on the floor at the top of the stairs too, and I also just recall saying Niina had been “beaten” but not how. Perhaps the killer kicked her repeatedly in the face once she had been stabbed and was lying down? Sorry for the awful visuals here… but I agree perhaps it was not his fists that he used…

I disagree with this, although its just my intuition.

You usually kick someone who you want to get away from, or who you want to get away from you. That is not the case here, atleast not from my read of the killer’s attack.

I feel like he used his hands. There is something called sympathetic analgesia, where the supercharged sympathetic nervous system makes you feel less pain in the moment, and so its not impossible for him to punch him.

Moreso, we know he hard pushes the ladder uptop, and I don’t think you can kick that ladder, so he was definitely able to use his hands.

 

[BatataPoha]

I attempted to reconstruct how the killer might have gotten his cut, at least one of them. I believe it happened when he attacked Mikio from above, and the knife got stuck in the skull. These two pictures illustrate how he held that knife and the likely cut he sustained (all speculation on my part):

View attachment 519903 View attachment 519904

I would also note that after his knife attack on Mikio, he executed another knife attack on the women and also used his fists to bash them. Being right-handed, it’s evident that his injured hand was still functional and he had no issues using it. That said, I don’t think he had too much wrapped around the cut to attract attention. The location of the cut is such that it can barely be seen from the front and is only visible if the hand is lifted. Otherwise, the cut can be hidden under a sleeve. JMO.

Agreed. This is good work imo.

 

[BatataPoha]

I have a question - to you and to anyone who's aware of Japanese mentality.

I can imagine how a killer like this would look like; but I can't say that they don't stand out. They do, although it is impossible to predict what they'd do.

So I assume that the killer ought to have stood out in a way. I can imagine an outgoing, social and charming man still being capable of such behavior (Eric Harris looked rather charming), but it is not the most typical situation. Yet I assume that he is Japanese, and avoided capture by not standing out at all. Meaning, being like every average Japanese man. Total outliers are scrutinized and rejected by the community, and an outlier with scarred hands would cause questions.

So what do you think is protecting him from being paid attention to? Is he not what we think he is? Or, is he masking too well due to high, not low, IQ? Does he have parents who are so protective that they normalize and conceal his behavior? Is he in some mental institution or a group setting? Or did he commit suicide?

If he is indeed Japanese, the only thing that could be protecting him is a lack of a social circle during the crimes.

 

[Charlot123]

Lots of good discussions here, so let me chime in.

1) First a small correction, someone here said that 750 mil of blood loss could precipitate or cause a hemorrhagic shock. As I am a doctor I can confidently say that that is incorrect in a normal adult.

The blood loss during a normal delivery is around 500 ml, during a Caeserean is around 1L and there is no shock over there. The human body can easily survive a loss of about 30% of total blood volume (roughly 1.5L) before the blood pressure even starts dropping.

Just for reference - https://www.researchgate.net/figure...fication-of-Haemorrhagic-Shock_tbl1_303541381

Personally I don’t believe the blood loss was more than 500-1000 ml at most, athough thats just my guess work.

2] Military man lacking knifing skills.

That can be a correct premise, but I doubt that a military man would be so underconfident that he wouldn’t take on a little girl and an injured lady without a second knife.

Not to mention the very poor choice of attacking bony structures instead of the abdomen, and the choice of the knife and its lack of guard.

The grappling is very messy despite all the advantages the killer had. It doesn’t speak military to me JMO.

Respectfully, I did not mean to say, hemorrhagic shock, I meant to say, stage (Class) I of hemorrhagic shock. Here are four stages. MOO - he didn’t lose over 500 ml. Also, after C-section, I got up and walked the same night. Pain, not weakness, was the limiting factor. Women tolerate blood loss easier, though.

Hemorrhagic Shock - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

Shock refers to the inadequate perfusion of tissues due to the imbalance between the oxygen demand of tissues and the body’s ability to supply it. Classically, there are four categories of shock: hypovolemic, cardiogenic, obstructive, and distributive shock. Hypovolemic shock occurs when there...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[FlowersInBloom]

Am I misremembering or was it said that the killer had injuries on both hands? I seem to remember Faceless saying that both of the gloves were torn up with blood inside? Possible I’m mistaken here though…

As for using the pads to dress a wound or wounds, my gut here is still that the killer knew how to do this beforehand by some kind of training or was taught how to do it by someone military or medical.

Besides DNA profiling and testing I don’t know what the TMPD or Japan can do further to find this guy if he is in the country… he has eluded authorities for 23 years, 260,000 officers, 16,000 pieces of evidence, 1,000,000+ fingerprinted, fingerprints registered with interpol, a ¥20,000,000 reward for capture, successfully and single-handedly abolished the statute of limitations for the entire country. And yet there is nothing. With officers still assigned to the case… nothing. The sheer man-power the country has put into finding this one man in Japan and they can’t even get close…

All I can really conclude here is that he isn’t Japanese and isn’t in Japan. He left. They haven’t got a DNA profile and, to my knowledge, haven’t widened the search out of the country. I seriously think he left Japan and is out there somewhere else.
There are of course other cases out there that are unsolved but the effort for this one is 100 times more in my opinion…

Japan has spent 23 years looking in its own country and turned up nothing. Look somewhere else!!