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

[fridaybaker]

Behind the Miyazawa house was the kid's playground which would've been empty at night. On one side is the main path that runs through Soshigaya Park. One the other, a quiet river that runs by. As far as Tokyo homes go, it was really quite isolated... Though not completely. You can see how close the neighbouring house is where Ann lived:

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I certainly agree his motive could have been for a thrill. It would explain the seeming lack of connection while still acknowledging the total brutality he shows in the murders. And it's also a safe bet to think the killer was young. This is the official angle of the Tokyo MPD. They revised his age to 15-20s only a few years ago.

A few minor quibbles: Mikio's email was password-protected. Not the computer. The killer did log on. The only thing we know for sure that he did was to create a new folder for some reason. Though he was on there for 5 minutes so it's safe to assume he did other things too.

As for the location: the killer would've likely had a good idea the house literally next door would've been inhabited. Not only that, but there was a house over the street that was also inhabited (a couple who were interviewed but heard nothing and saw nothing). And one more house next to them that was inhabited. So, yes. The murder scene was relatively isolated but also not completely remote and disconnected. Plus, the killer would have had to have assumed nobody would phone the cops. It's still a big risk.

Which is why his actions after the murders themselves are all the more puzzling. How could he have known that nobody heard a scream and the police were on their way over?

Hmmm. Maybe he knew the M’s, at least of them. Knew that they lived in a small cluster of houses with no one else on two sides. It was about as isolated a venue as could be expected. That he knew of.

Regarding staying in the house so long, there is the youth-aspect I mentioned above, but let’s also consider what the mind might be like of such a killer. Is he inordinately cocky and confident? Is he perhaps just enough detached from reality that he can plan and execute, but doesn’t always see consequences. He becomes too engrossed in the thrill/his plan/his “hobby”, etc., to think much past it? At least for a couple of hours? And really, it seems he could have stayed for maybe a couple of hours, rather than several.

Just noodling.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

A little off topic, but the houses both look so large from the outside, but tiny on the inside. (Mother and daughter were sleeping in a small attic-like space with a pull-down ladder for access?) !!

Yes, it's a little odd. If you look at the video of Ann Irie on the house tour, you can get a sense of how cramped it actually is on the inside. And certainly, having stood outside the houses a few times, photos don't really convey its true size. It's really not that big.

(Although it is large by Tokyo standards)

 

[FacelessPodcast]

A little off topic, but the houses both look so large from the outside, but tiny on the inside. (Mother and daughter were sleeping in a small attic-like space with a pull-down ladder for access?) !!

Here you can see the Ann house tour video:

Relative of slain family fights to preserve their house in Tokyo | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

At around 0.28, you will see the staircase on which the killer and Mikio clash. It's so narrow and tight. For this reason, I think the killer was inhibited in his blows. This probably explains why his hands were so injured.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

Maybe there wasn’t really much screaming? I’m no expert on this topic, but maybe they were too scared to scream initially and then couldn’t really get screams out as they were being stabbed. Maybe more like low, muffled sounds as they were shielding their heads and faces.

I don’t know, but either the “close-by” neighbors were in on it, which doesn’t seem to be the case, or they selectively heard banging, but not screaming. And, how reliable this is or not, someone outside the residence reported hearing an argument, but the family next door, didn’t.

Could it be that there just wasn’t much screaming?

It's possible there was no screams at all, yes. I find that unlikely, but of course, it is possible. Particularly seeing as Rei would have probably been quickly silenced even if he understood he was in danger.

What I find difficult to believe is that the family next door heard only one single loud noise throughout the entire attack and the subsequent ransacking of the house. For one, the fight between the killer and Mikio ended with the ladder falling backwards down the wooden stairs. How could that have occurred in silence? The killer went up the ladder and then down it to get another knife. Yasuko carried Niina down the ladder, both injured by that point and probably not in total silence. They see the man emerge from the kitchen now holding a carving knife. She doesn't plead with him? Doesn't beg him to not hurt her baby? She doesn't call out for Mikio? Or, if she sees Mikio dead at the bottom of the stairs, she doesn't call out his name? Tell him to wake up, to do something?

To give context, the sound expert who we worked with on the podcast (who has solid knowledge of soundproofing obviously) said that you would have heard a cough clearly enough between the walls, even if somewhat softened. Let alone any of what I've described above.

The family next door, Ann's family, were adamant they heard nothing. It was Ann's son, I believe, who told the Chief he heard the banging sound. I suppose it's possible they all slept through. And if they had stuck to that, it would have been entirely acceptable. But the problem comes when you hear only one sound and not all. Because now it seems possible you were awake throughout.

As for literally any of the witness statements, I'm yet to read one that stacks up. Certainly, it didn't seem like the Chief put much faith in any of them. The only argument I've heard repeatedly commented on was Mikio's with the skaters in the days before the murders. But like I've said many times, the police have looked at the skating community frontwards and backwards for YEARS, fingerprinting them as they go, demanding names. And zero. Frankly, the killer didn't even look like a skater based on his clothes as has been covered here various times before.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

This theory to me fits with a young killer. Someone without the “preservation” fear that comes with age and experience. He stayed in the house out of that lack of fear, maybe waiting for a train scheduled in the morning. Someone to whom destructive curiosity would mean throwing papers about. Who might be looking for things and not really knowing what he should be looking for.

At least, that’s where I am right now.

To go back to this for one second. I agree that he was young, yes -- almost certainly he was.

But I find it VERY hard to believe he took the train. For one, he had no jacket on December 31st. He left his behind and it seems almost definite he only took a sweatshirt belonging to Mikio. So, he's underdressed. Two, he's injured at least one hand quite badly. It's likely he used Yasuko's sanitary pads to patch himself up, even. Three, the possibility exists that he looks foreign (even if, like I've said many, many times, it's simply not certain). Four, if we assume he was taking the train, he would want to take the first one of the day to ensure as few riders as possible. That's around 4:30am-5am. But it's a city of 40 million people and Setagaya Ward is the most populous one in the city. The odds of not ONE person seeing the suspect in the hours after the murders? I think his luck would have to be more incredible than it already is.

There are local buses of course. And taxis. But the same goes for them, he's left with the problem of being seen.

No, I think he likely arrived on a bicycle or by car.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

I apologize if this has been brought up before. I can’t remember.

I think the killer’s clothing mostly fits, or at least isn’t inconsistent with, a doctor’s teenage son: Trendy, newest season, fairly expensive brands, and young. (Except for the hat, maybe, which is likely one of the type of clothing items outside of one’s normal attire, that one would don when doing a crime. Well, maybe. In the movies, anyway.)

I can't really speak to what would be in keeping with the killer's fashion or outside of it. But we can see that his jacket, his shoes, and his shirt were not low brands. The jacket had only been released as a new line a few weeks back. The M/X shirt was not cheap at all. 10,000 or there abouts from memory. The knife he got was not cheap, either.

The hat I think he chose because of the low brim, it would have covered his eyebrows and created shadow pools over his eyes. It also looked as if he used one of his Muji handkerchiefs to cover his face (it was pinched, as though sticking out over the nose -- the other handkerchief was wrapped around the blade as a kind of crossguard).

As you say, if the killer was as young as 15, where was he getting this cash? Well, maybe an allowance. But certain items don't fit. The scarf, for example, was of cheap manufacture and the police think he got it from one of those UFO grabby machines in arcades. I think again, he brought it just to obscure his face on the way to the murders.

PS for context, the person of interest was about 10 days away from his 18th birthday on the night of the murders.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

Is it common in Tokyo for single family home to share a wall?

This is really quite difficult to answer. It's true that often Tokyo houses (ignoring apartments which is obviously a vast number) have some separation, even if the gap between them is tiny. But then again, it's the largest city on earth. What is common or uncommon is basically impossible to argue definitively.

Not to be vague but it really does depend on area / income etc. There is a youtuber who does a lot of videos on different forms of Tokyo housing if you're interested:

 

[FacelessPodcast]

Hmmm. Maybe he knew the M’s, at least of them. Knew that they lived in a small cluster of houses with no one else on two sides. It was about as isolated a venue as could be expected. That he knew of.

Regarding staying in the house so long, there is the youth-aspect I mentioned above, but let’s also consider what the mind might be like of such a killer. Is he inordinately cocky and confident? Is he perhaps just enough detached from reality that he can plan and execute, but doesn’t always see consequences. He becomes too engrossed in the thrill/his plan/his “hobby”, etc., to think much past it? At least for a couple of hours? And really, it seems he could have stayed for maybe a couple of hours, rather than several.

Just noodling.

Yes, any / all of these possible.

I also think it's quite possible he went into shock when the adrenaline died down and he realised he was losing blood. We know he spent some time patching himself up and stemming the loss. Maybe he went into a panic and couldn't think clearly. Some kind of post-murder catatonia? I mean his actions don't really tally with that, being relaxed enough to eat ice cream, melon, use the toilet, go on their computer and so on.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

For one, the fight between the killer and Mikio ended with the ladder falling backwards down the wooden stairs.

With the LATTER falling backwards down wooden stairs*

 

[Charlot123]

Your theory is entirely possible, of course.

It wouldn't fit with the person of interest I'm looking into, the man with the scars. But like I say, I could very well be wrong about him and, if so, it would leave your theory still on the table.

And it's Niina, with two 'i's. Which is a Japanese name. Although not super common.

Ann Irie and her family next door claim their hear only one single banging noise at around 11pm. But they hear no screams. When this seeming contradiction is raised, I think the soundproofing is what they would point to as an explanation. But when my sound guy was at the house itself looking at the walls, he was adamant that there was no possible way any kind of soundproofing would be able to muffle screaming at that proximity with old, wooden walls. But if we take Ann's family's comments as true -- that they only heard one banging sound -- then they would have been relatively unconcerned that night. And that seems to fit with the actions the next day. Haruko, Ann and Yasuko's mother, discovers the bodies around 10am. The police are called at 10:50am. This is almost exactly 12 hours after the killer broke into the house.

I think I can imagine what you mean by saying that your poi and Mikio look very different.

However, it is what is obvious to observers. What the young man felt could have been very different.

Have you ever, in your childhood, asked yourself, "am I not my parents' child?" Many kids do, without any reason. Maybe if someone is not quite right in the head, in him it could have turned into an obsession? Or an explanation of why he was not fitting in?

Plus, things happen. Women get married, have kids with their husbands, and somehow, somewhere among these three-four kids, there is an NPE. The father may know or not, and for sure everyone thinks the child doesn't know, but the child might guess that somehow, he doesn't fit in.

Why do I think it could have been an "imaginary game breaking into reality?" It is a wide assumption - but if Japanese archives are open for the public, and the young man visited them, driven by own imaginary game, trying to find his "real family", what other language is so suitable for being mistaken? Different dialects, huge field for misinterpreting the hieroglyphs, a person just learning Japanese...

And plus, 15-16 is precisely the age when a young man could be let astray by his "imaginary game". The chance is lower after 18.

Had money been the focus, or any secondary goal being involved, you'd see it. Instead, the house is still staying there, the money was not stolen. But that night, a young man took the time to...familiarize himself with the house, for lack of a better term?

One more aspect. I would not be surprised if among all US bases in Japan, there could be at least one psychologist who evaluated the kid. JMO.

 

[AC4RD]

This part of the discussion has died down, but it's been quiet and I finally remembered to ask my wife ("Mrs Ken") about this:

My wife was an Air Force dependent at Yokota ... but it was 1962-65, and things must have been different by the time Murderer-San was possibly on-base.

But in 1962: Mrs Ken and her parents flew by military transport to Japan; she does not remember how or where they cleared Customs. They lived on-base for a year and then off-base for two, in quarters that were apparently US controlled but not on the actual base. Japanese-built, though: wood heater, wringer-style washing machine (young folks may need to look that one up.)

She went to school (elementary + early middle school) on-base. There were no native Japanese kids in her classes, and all US instructors. (The school WAS racially integrated, which is impressive. I grew up in south Louisiana and my school wasn't integrated until I was in high school.) She says they had regular classes in Japanese culture and language. Her classes also went on "fairly frequent" field trips, sometimes by train, to attend festivals and tour historic or beautiful places. They also had Japanese people come to give talks about Japanese cultural topics. --ken

 

[FacelessPodcast]

But in 1962: Mrs Ken and her parents flew by military transport to Japan; she does not remember how or where they cleared Customs. They lived on-base for a year and then off-base for two, in quarters that were apparently US controlled but not on the actual base. Japanese-built, though: wood heater, wringer-style washing machine (young folks may need to look that one up.)

She went to school (elementary + early middle school) on-base. There were no native Japanese kids in her classes, and all US instructors. (The school WAS racially integrated, which is impressive. I grew up in south Louisiana and my school wasn't integrated until I was in high school.) She says they had regular classes in Japanese culture and language. Her classes also went on "fairly frequent" field trips, sometimes by train, to attend festivals and tour historic or beautiful places. They also had Japanese people come to give talks about Japanese cultural topics. --ken

Thanks for the post, Ken. Very interesting! I wonder if that military transport was called the Patriot Express back then also.

The possible person of interest I'm looking into was in school on base from around 11 to 18. He must have been getting decent Japanese lessons as his grades show him getting A's in this. From yearbooks and so on, it's clear he too was going on field trips. The base is interesting in that it's an American bubble in an ocean of 'Japanese-ness'. In theory, a kid living on that base would be free to move in and out between the two...

 

[FacelessPodcast]

Question for the scientifically-inclined:

Let's imagine I get the DNA of the person of interest. How significant would it be if he shared the same haplogroup as the killer?

I think I'm right in saying that for O-M122 -- O would be Asian, then the M122 part shows the position on the 'family tree' of the human race. So would them both being O-M122 basically just mean their ancestors originate from a similar place on the map? Basically meaning this coincidence is useless?

 

[vls12345]

Question for the scientifically-inclined:

Let's imagine I get the DNA of the person of interest. How significant would it be if he shared the same haplogroup as the killer?

I think I'm right in saying that for O-M122 -- O would be Asian, then the M122 part shows the position on the 'family tree' of the human race. So would them both being O-M122 basically just mean their ancestors originate from a similar place on the map? Basically meaning this coincidence is useless?

Maybe @othram can answer? (I have no idea.)

 

[annemc2]

Or if @CeCeMoore is around?

 

[LondonBloke]

Maybe @10ofRods could help?

 

[Charlot123]

Question for the scientifically-inclined:

Let's imagine I get the DNA of the person of interest. How significant would it be if he shared the same haplogroup as the killer?

I think I'm right in saying that for O-M122 -- O would be Asian, then the M122 part shows the position on the 'family tree' of the human race. So would them both being O-M122 basically just mean their ancestors originate from a similar place on the map? Basically meaning this coincidence is useless?

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I am far from genetics, but IMHO, it depends on whether there is any way to "expand" initial tests of the killer's DNA, or not.

If not, because of the privacy laws in Japan, which I suspect will be your answer:

1) then I'd say, the opposite can be done. You can cross him out of your poi's list should his Y be not of O-M122 type.

2) if his Y is of O-M122, which is a common group in Asia, you still have one more thing, his mitochondrial DNA, if you know it. It is European, as I understand. If it is not too common, and your poi has the same Y plus the same mitogroup as the killer, then it will come to calculating statistical probability of such a combination.

Only with mitochondrial DNA, the testing has become more extensive. One may wish to find out what and how they tested in Japan. Would make sense to find out the killer's mitogroup, and what test they did.

(Now, if you still find a way to test both your poi's and the killer's Ys. Of course, in this case you could simply test autosomes, it would be more than enough, but the Y will "expand", too. FTDNA's "tree" has 783 branches of O-M122.)

 

[fridaybaker]

Facelesspodcast: Have you made any progress on your POI?

 

[FacelessPodcast]

Facelesspodcast: Have you made any progress on your POI?

He's still a person of interest. I've tried very hard to eliminate him in one way or another but that just has happened...

 

[FacelessPodcast]

He's still a person of interest. I've tried very hard to eliminate him in one way or another but that just has happened...

Correction: That just HASN'T happened**...