It’s one thing to have your child kidnapped and murdered. It’s another to have their killer torment you with their death. That’s just what Tsutomu Miyazaki did when he murdered four little girls in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture.
Background
Tsutomu Miyazaki was born on August 21, 1962 in Itsukaichi, Tokyo. He was born premature and suffered from a rare birth defect that caused his hand joints to be fused together, preventing him from being able to bend his wrists upwards.
Miyazaki was the eldest son of a wealthy family who owned a regional newspaper company and was well known in Itsukaichi – his grandfather and great-grandfather had actually served on the town council.
With very busy parents, Miyazaki was mostly raised by his grandfather and an intellectually disabled man the family hired as a nanny.
When he entered school, he was made fun of for his deformity and consequently kept to himself. He went on to attend the prestigious Meidai Nakano High School in Nakano, a school associated with Meiji University. Miyazaki was an excellent student, ranking in the top 10 of his class. Then suddenly he wasn’t. By the end of his high school career, he ranked 40 out of 56 students.
While it was customary for students from Meidai Nakano High School to receive admission to Meiji University, he did not. Subsequently, he left behind his plans of becoming a teacher and instead attended a junior college where he studied to become a photography technician.
Miyazaki had been expected to take over the family business, but he had no interest in doing so. In fact, he had no interest in his family, claiming they only cared about financial and material success. “If I tried to talk to my parents about my problems, they’d just brush me off.”
He wanted nothing to do with his family aside from his grandfather, whom he believed to be the only person who cared about his happiness.
In college, Miyazaki became obsessed with porn, though it didn’t take long for the pornographic magazines to lose his interest. By 1984 he was actively seeking out child porn, which was shockingly not hampered by censorship. Obscenity laws in Japan only banned pubic hair, not sex organs.
He contemplated suicide, and only received support from his grandfather. When he died in May 1988, his depression got worse and he further isolated himself from others. In an attempt to “retain something from him,” Miyazaki ate part of his grandfather’s ashes.
“I felt all alone,” he said. “And whenever I saw a little girl playing on her own, it was almost like seeing myself.”
Weeks later, one of his sisters caught him watching her as she showered. He attacked her when she told him to leave. When his mother learned of the incident, she demanded he spend more time working, and less time with his videotapes. He attacked her as well.
The Murders
On August 22, 1988, one day after his 26th birthday, Tsutomu Miyazaki spotted four-year-old Mari Konno playing at a friend’s house. He approached her and simply led her back to his car.
He drove to a wooded area, west of Tokyo, and parked underneath a bridge where he wouldn’t be seen by passersby. He sat with her in the car for around 90 minutes before murdering her. Once dead, he molested her corpse.
He dumped her body in the hills near his home, taking her clothes with him.
Mari’s father attempted to find her, but ultimately had to contact police.
Her body lay decomposing, but he hadn’t finished with her yet. He returned and cut off her hands and feet, which he then kept in his closet. Miyazaki burned her remaining bones in his furnace, ground them into powder, and placed them into a box along with several of her teeth, photos of her clothes, and a postcard which read, 「真理さん、骨、火葬、調査して、証明して」 (“Mari. Cremated. Bones. Investigate. Prove.”)
He would call the family and breathe heavily into the phone, but otherwise didn’t speak. If the family didn’t answer he would continue to call until he got a response. He sent the box he had made up to her family.
On October 3, 1988, he abducted 7-year-old Masami Yoshizawa, whom he spotted walking home down a rural road. He offered her a ride, which she accepted, and proceeded to drive to the same spot under the bridge where he had killed Mari Konno.
Miyazaki killed Masami before sexually assaulting her corpse and dumping her body. He took her clothes with him.
Panic set in amongst the parents of little girls in Saitama prefecture. They named the killer the “Otaku Killer” or “Otaku Murderer” and labeled his crimes the “The Little Girl Murders.”
December 12, 1988, he kidnapped 4-year-old Erika Namba as she was returning home from a friends’ house. He forced her into his car and drove to a parking lot in Naguri. In the back seat of the car, he forced her to remove her clothes and he began taking pictures of her before killing her. He tied her hands and feet behind her back, covered her with a bedsheet, and placed her body in the trunk of his car.
Miyazaki dumped Erika’s body in the adjoining parking lot before disposing of her clothes in a wooded area. Her body was discovered three days later.
On December 20 Erika Namba’s family received a postcard sent by Miyazaki. The postcard contained a message assembled using words cut out of magazines: 「絵梨香、かぜ、せき、のど、楽、死 」 (“Erika. Cold. Cough. Throat. Rest. Death.”)
Still not caught, on June 6, 1989, Miyazaki convinced 5-year-old Ayako Nomoto to allow him to take pictures of her. He led her into his car where he killed her, covered her body with a bedsheet, and placed her in the trunk of his car. He took her corpse into his apartment where he sexually abused her, took more photos, and masturbated.
When Ayako’s body began to decompose, he dismembered it and dumped her torso in a cemetery, her head in the nearby hills, and other parts in various locations including a public restroom. At home, he had kept her hands and feet, drinking her blood and even cannibalizing them.
Fearing police would find her remains, he returned to the cemetery, hills, and other locations to retrieve them. He took them back to his apartment where he concealed them in his closet.
Capture and Trial
Finally, on July 23, 1989, Miyazaki found two sisters playing in a park in Hachiōji. Somehow he managed to separate the sisters, and convinced the younger of the two to let him photograph her. He got her to strip nude and was taking photos when he was caught by her father, who attacked him
Unable to restrain him, Miyazaki broke free and fled on foot. When he returned to retrieve his car, he was spotted and arrested by police.
A search of his apartment produced 5,763 videotapes, some containing anime and slasher films, as well as video footage and pictures of his victims. 4-year-old Mari Konno’s hands and feet were found in the closet.
During the course of his trial, which began on March 10, 1990, Miyazaki remained calm and collected, some would even describe him as indifferent to his capture. He blamed his actions on “Rat Man,” an alter ego whom he claimed forced him to kill.
As for his family, his father refused to pay for his legal defense and committed suicide.
A moral panic spread through the public, some speculating that it was anime and horror films that had made him a murderer. Various newspapers claimed that he had retreated into a fantasy world of manga as a result of his neglected upbringing.
Keigo Okonogi, a psychoanalyst at Tokyo International University, told the Shūkan Post that “The danger of a whole generation of youth who do not even experience the most primary two- or three-way relationship between themselves and their mother and father, and who cannot make the transition from a fantasy world of videos and manga to reality, is now extreme.
The trial, which lasted for seven years, primarily focused on Miyazaki’s state of mind at the time of the murders. Under Japanese law, people of unsound minds are not subject to punishment, and the feeble-minded are entitled to reduced sentences.
Three teams of court-appointed expert psychiatrists came to differing conclusions about his ability to tell right from wrong. Two teams determined him to be feeble-minded with one concluding that he was schizophrenic, and the other claiming that he had multiple personality disorder.
The third team found that although Miyazaki had a personality disorder, he was still capable of taking responsibility for his actions.
He was ultimately judged to have been aware of the magnitude and consequences of his crimes and was therefore accountable. He was sentenced to death on April 14, 1997. A sentence that was upheld by the Tokyo High Court on June 28, 2001, and the Supreme Court of Justice on January 17, 2006.
Minister of Justice, Kunio Hatoyama, signed Miyazaki’s death warrant on June 17, 2008 and he was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House that same day.
For more in child murders, read about the Unsolved Alphabet Murders.
