Information Regarding the Wakayama Curry Case
See also Letter from
Masumi
Wakayama curry murders recalled 10 years on
Sunday 27th July, 2008
WAKAYAMA —
This weekend marked the 10th anniversary of the
high-profile Wakayama festival curry poisonings that killed
four people and sickened 63 others. Although Masumi
Hayashi, 47, was sentenced to death for the murders and
attempted murders by the Wakayama District Court in 2002
and the Osaka High Court upheld her sentence in 2005, much
of the story remains unresolved.
Hayashi, who proclaimed her innocence throughout the
trials, has appealed her case to the Supreme Court.
The district and high courts said the life-insurance
saleswoman added arsenic to a vat of curry served up during
Wakayama’s Sonobe district festival on July 25, 1998, while
neighbor women she was unfriendly with were not around.
Police had charged Hayashi based on circumstantial
evidence. She remained silent all through her first trial.
Hayashi was also charged with conspiring with her husband,
Kenji, a termite exterminator who handled arsenic, in a
failed attempt to murder an acquaintance with arsenic-laced
food for insurance money. Kenji Hayashi was sentenced to
six years in prison in 2000.
Although Masumi owned up to the murder-for-insurance
attempt in court, she claimed innocence for the curry
murders. She was also convicted of trying to poison her
husband for insurance. Prosecutors obtained a wealth of
circumstantial evidence, but no confession.
Given the situation, Sonobe residents and kin of the
victims say their sorrow and sadness persist 10 years
later.
A 75-year-old Sonobe woman who helped cook the curry with
other housewives, said: “I still regret that we left
(Hayashi) alone near the curry vat.”
A victims’ group is urging Hayashi to come clean, but to no
avail.
“The situation has come to a point where we can no longer
expect her to tell the truth. After all, lost lives can’t
be brought back and our sorrow can’t be healed, even if she
speaks up,” group leader Mitsuo Hamai, 58, said.