On the morning of April 23, 1994, in Inokashira Park in Mitaka City, Tokyo, a cleaning lady found a human ankle in a plastic bag discarded in a trash can. Normally, we do not check the contents of trash, but this woman was looking for something in the trash that could be food for her cat, and opened the plastic bag.
According to the cleaning lady, it looked like a fish fillet from the supermarket. Also, around 4:00 a.m. that day, two suspicious-looking men in their 30s were seen walking around the park with plastic bags.
When police searched the park, they found 27 body parts in trash cans scattered around the pond.
They were all placed in translucent plastic bags that were tightly tied together. Each one was unnaturally the same size. Usually in such cases, the pieces are divided into joints. This suggests that the perpetrator intended to dispose of them in the park’s trash cans, since the opening of the trash cans are vertically and horizontally separated from the bottom of the bag. This is because the opening of the trash can is 20 cm in length and 30 cm in width, and this size can be thrown away without any problem.
The body was identified, but…
The body found consisted only of both limbs and the right chest, perfectly drained of blood and weighing only 20-odd kilograms. The fingerprints on the hands had been scraped off, but the victim was identified as Seiichi Kawamura, then 35 years old, a first-class architect who lived near the park, based on the few remaining palm prints and DNA analysis. There were slight traces of bleeding in the musculature of the ribs, but the cause and time of death could not be determined from the body with no other information.
The body was perfectly drained of blood to a deep level. This was thought to suggest familiarity with the running of blood vessels and to prevent identification. However, no matter how much blood was removed, if muscle tissue or other nucleated cells remained, the identity of the deceased could be determined by DNA analysis or other means. Although the murderer cut up the body with high skill, his knowledge of the investigation is considered to be that of an amateur.
The victim was not in trouble.
Mr. Kawamura had been missing since the night of the 21st, and his wife reported him missing in the evening of the 22nd; there were no clues as to what had happened to him in the 34 hours from the time he left his colleagues at Shinjuku Station late at night on the morning of the 21st until he was found dead. Initially, the investigation team believed that the crime was motivated by a grudge, given the bizarre manner in which the murder was committed. However, despite exhaustive interviews at work, with friends, and in the neighborhood, nothing concrete was found, such as a male-female relationship or financial problems. As a result, the grudge line disappeared, there was no evidence of a traffic accident, and no physical evidence or information that could lead to the culprit was found. 15 years, the statute of limitations for prosecution, had passed in vain. There are many mixed theories about this mysterious case.
#Theory of organized crime
The autopsy physician believes that more than one person committed the crime, because of the following points
There are three different patterns of mutilation of the body.
It would be difficult for a single killer to dispose of the body.
The dissection of a large amount of blood requires a large amount of water, which is unlikely to be found in the bathroom of an ordinary home. In terms of the processing method, the analysis shows that a group of several people carried out the cutting, cleaning, and packaging in a workflow-like manner. He also said that he feels it was done in a calm manner, following the originally determined equipment and procedures.
#Theory of Mind Control Group’s Commitment
Connected to the “organized crime theory,” the autopsy doctor believes that this was an act solemnly performed by several mind-controlled individuals, such as a radical cult. He says that there has never been a case in the world’s criminal history of such a meticulous and unusual body disposal.
Mr. Kawamura said that on two or three occasions he was dropped off in the Takaido area of Suginami Ward when he was being driven home by a colleague. There are several religious facilities in the area, but it is unclear if this is related to the incident.
Kawamura’s wife has stated that she has never been a member of a new religion. (Shincho Bunko, “The murderer is there – 13 cases of inescapable madness and ruthlessness” p.40)
#The theory that he was killed by the wrong person
In 2015, six years after the statute of limitations, it was suggested that Mr. Kawamura may have been killed by the wrong person. A man who was a leading street vendor in the area at the time was said to have a face, height, and age identical to Mr. Kawamura’s. This man planned to drive out the increasing number of foreign street vendors from the area. They often caused trouble because they did not follow the rules.
The man enlisted the help of others in the area and tried to fight them tooth and nail. Then he realized something. The hippies he had thought were mere street vendors were actually agents of a special agency of a certain country. The man had attacked a group of professional agents who had entered the country under false pretenses.
The man was conversely monitored and his life was threatened. For this reason, he stayed away from the Kichijoji area, where he was renting a house as a warehouse at the time, and moved from one business hotel to another in Tokyo. Despite this, he began to feel the shadows of suspicious foreigners wherever he went in Japan. Just when he thought it was all over, this incident occurred.
That night, the man was hiding out at a business hotel in Tokyo as usual. He learned of the incident on a TV wide show, and on the screen was the house he was using as a warehouse. And when he saw the image of the victim, he said, “I felt a chill run down my spine; I was convinced that this man had been mistaken for me and killed.
Kawamura’s house and the property the man was renting as a storage unit were just a stone’s throw away from each other. In the Kichijoji Station area, the man was often approached by acquaintances of Ms. Kawamura and others, who were always surprised by the striking resemblance. This raises the suspicion that Mr. Kawamura was murdered by foreign agents on behalf of the man.
