On February 28, 1989, at around 6:00 p.m., Ms. A. (23), a female teacher working at an elementary school in the village
When she returned home to her teacher’s house adjacent to the elementary school where she lived, she entered the bathroom and casually peeked inside to see what appeared to be shoes.
(*One of the shoes was near his head. The other pair was found on the bank near the teachers’ residence.)
Surprised, she circled around to the outside pumping hole and found the lid open, and when she looked inside, she saw a human foot.
Ms. A immediately called the vice principal and other fellow teachers, who in turn called the police.
First, police officers from the nearby police station arrived, followed by members of the village fire brigade and the police .
The officers tried to pull the person inside out of the toilet tank, but were unable to do so because of the narrow space.
They dug up the surrounding area with heavy machinery, broke the toilet tank, and somehow managed to pull the person out.
(The tank was later restored and preserved by S.’s father.)
The person in the tank was already dead. The body was naked, even in the middle of winter.
The body was naked, holding his jacket to his chest, his knees bent, and his face tilted slightly to the left.
The body was washed on the spot with water from a hose, and further washed at the fire brigade’s station where it was brought, and an autopsy was performed by a doctor.
The cause of death was determined to be “freezing and thoracic circulatory disturbance. It is believed that he was compressed in a confined space and froze to death.
There were no significant external injuries to the body, except for abrasions on the elbows and knees. There were no signs of a struggle.
Based on the rigor mortis, it was assumed that he died around the 26th.
The body was quickly identified. It was Mr. S. (26), who lived in the village about 10 minutes by car from the site.
The police determined that he had entered the toilet tank to take a peek and froze to death when he was unable to get out due to the narrow space.
Although the police treated the incident as an accidental death, there were whispers of doubt in the village.
The deceased Mr. S. lived with his parents and grandmother in the village. He was a young man who loved sports and music.
In high school, he played guitar in a band with his friends, wrote his own lyrics, and left behind several notebooks of lyrics.
He works as a sales manager for a company that maintains a nuclear power plant in a neighboring town.
In the village, he is a central figure as the head of the recreation department of the youth association.
He is so popular and cheerful that he was often asked to preside at weddings and to make a speech in support of the village mayor’s election.
“It was unthinkable that Mr. S. would sneak into the toilet tank to peek.”
Everyone who knew him said so.
Mr. A, was away on vacation from 24 to 27, returning to his parents’ home in the prefecture. As described below.
It is possible that Mr. S and Ms. A were acquaintances and knew that Ms. A was not at home.
If they had known, they would not have entered the toilet tank for the purpose of peeping at this time.
Doubts also remain about S.’s whereabouts.
He had not been heard from since the 24th, four days before he was found dead (the day of the Emperor Showa’s mourning ceremony).
Five days earlier, on the 23rd, he attended a farewell party for a senior colleague, and left the restaurant at around 1:00 am on the 24th.
Around 10:00 a.m. that day, his father was watching TV in the living room.
He remembers hearing S’s voice saying, “I’m going out for a while.”
From that moment until the discovery of the body, there was no trace of S. for four days.
His car was found in the parking lot of an agricultural cooperative near the teachers’ residence, with the keys in the ignition.
It is also puzzling that one of his shoes was found on the bank.
And the estimated date of death is the 26th. That means he was alive for two days after he was reported missing.
Where was S. during that time?
Besides, the diameter of the manhole is 36 cm, while the average shoulder width of a male aged 25-29 is 40.4 cm.
Although S’s physique is unknown, even if he is as small as a woman (the average shoulder width of women in the same age group is 36 cm), he is just barely able to fit through the manhole.
It is not impossible to enter the room by squeezing her shoulders, but it is obvious that it would be quite difficult.
It is so narrow that common sense would hesitate to enter of its own volition.
Even if he tried to enter, he would probably give up halfway because of its narrowness.
Even so, S. entered until the very end, and as a result, he lost his life because he was unable to move.
Did he really want to go that far to peek into the house?
After the incident, there were rumors in the village.
The village mayoral election held just before the incident was extremely tough, something rarely seen in recent years.
The rumor was that S. may have been killed in connection with the election.
The fact that S. stopped appearing in the middle of his speech in support of the mayor led to speculation.
(It is said that S. got fed up with the money disbursement and stopped being involved in the campaign.)
Rumor after rumor led to suspicion, and eventually some people began to name names and say, “Whoever it is, he or she is suspicious.
A petition drive to get to the bottom of the matter was launched, and about 4,000 signatures were submitted to the Miharu Police Station within a month or so.
However, the police refused to take up the matter, claiming that there was no case, and no investigation was ever conducted.
It is true that it is a bit too far-fetched to think that the murder was caused by the village mayor election.
It is not difficult to imagine that it would be more difficult for a third party to force his way into the manhole than it would be for him to enter by himself, given the narrowness of the manhole.
There is another fact that is of interest.
S and A, a teacher, knew each other through A’s male lover.
And Ms. A had previously been plagued by prank phone calls.
Ms. S and her boyfriend recorded the prank calls and reported them to the police.
In the end, the police did not act on the matter, but according to one of Ms. S’s acquaintances
Mr. S. seemed to have almost found out who the culprit was…
Who was the owner of the prank caller whom she had identified, and who was involved in this case?
Who was the prank caller, and did he or she have anything to do with this case?
There is no way to know for sure now.
