Serial killer Miyazaki, two others hanged
'80s
child slayings stunned Japan; executions under Hatoyama hit
13
By
MINORU MATSUTANI
Serial
killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, 45, who abducted, molested and
strangled four young girls in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture
in 1988 and 1989, was hanged Tuesday along with two other
inmates, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said.
Hatoyama has now signed 13 execution orders since taking
his post in August, the highest by a single minister since
executions resumed in 1993.
"In all three cases, the inmates committed cruel acts for
very selfish reasons," Hatoyama told reporters. "I ordered
the executions to protect the rule of law."
Miyazaki's lawyers sent Hatoyama a letter last month
calling for a delay because they were preparing a plea to
reopen the trial.
Hatoyama, however, said he made the decision to execute
Miyazaki "with confidence." He said he considered the
letter and other factors, and had "heard the lawyers were
preparing, but have not filed, a formal application for a
retrial."
One of Miyazaki's lawyers, Maiko Tagusari, sent a fax
protesting the execution.
Miyazaki's case was a national sensation for the brutality
of his crimes as well as the bizarre behavior he exhibited.
After kidnapping his victims, he strangled them and
mutilated and burned some of their corpses. Some reports
claimed he ate part of their flesh.
Miyazaki was apprehended in 1989 while attempting a fifth
abduction.
Before his capture, he sent a box containing the bones of
one of the girls to her house and a letter claiming
responsibility signed by a "Yuko Imada."
In court, he made weird utterings, including: "A rat man
appeared when a girl cried."
Police seized from his house scores of videotapes featuring
small girls, reportedly some of his dead victims, who
ranged in age from 4 to 7, and animated girl characters,
prompting the media to describe him as an "otaku" (nerd)
obsessed with "anime" (animation) characters.
After psychiatric tests ordered by the court yielded mixed
results, the Tokyo District Court sentenced him to death in
July 1997. The Tokyo High Court upheld the sentence in June
2001.
The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal in January 2006,
finalizing the sentence.
The top court ruled that Miyazaki manifested an extreme
personality disorder, but he was mentally competent when he
committed the crimes and had no mental disorder that would
exempt him from criminal liability.
In a letter to Kyodo News just before the Supreme Court
ruling, Miyazaki maintained his innocence and said he
thought he "did a good thing."
Throughout his trials, he offered no apology to the victims
or their families.
The two others hanged Tuesday were Yoshio Yamasaki, 73, and
Shinji Mutsuda, 37.
Yamasaki was convicted of murdering two people in a life
insurance fraud in Kagawa Prefecture in 1985.
Mutsuda was convicted of killing two people to take over a
sex service shop owned by one of the victims in Tokyo in
1995.
Yamasaki's hanging came three years and four months after
his death sentence was finalized, while for Mutsuda it was
after two years and eight months.
Miyazaki and Mutsuda were executed at the Tokyo Detention
House, while Yamasaki was hanged at the Osaka Detention
House.
The executions, the most since the 10 ordered by Hatoyama's
predecessor Jinen Nagase, reduced Japan's death-row
population to 102.
Information from Kyodo added
The
Japan Times: Wednesday, June 18, 2008
(C) All rights reserved
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Serial
child killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, 2 others executed
Tuesday
17th June, 11:14 AM JST
TOKYO
—
Tsutomu
Miyazaki, the death row inmate convicted of tmurdering four
young girls in 1988 and 1989 in Tokyo and Saitama
Prefecture, was executed Tuesday, the Justice Ministry
said.
Miyazaki, 45, was among the three death row inmates hanged
the same day. With their execution, the number of inmates
executed under the orders of Justice Minister Kunio
Hatoyama, who has been in the post since last August, came
to 13.
‘‘After careful deliberation, we executed three
inmates today,’’ Hatoyama said at a news
conference.
Miyazaki, detained at the Tokyo Detention
House, was executed two years and four months after the
Supreme Court finalized his death sentence in February
2006, which ended trials of him that had lasted 16
years.
On Jan 17, 2006, the top court ruled that an
extreme character disorder could be found in Miyazaki, but
that he was completely mentally competent at the time of
the crime, denying he had any mental disorder that would
make him unable to bear criminal responsibility.
The top
court said Miyazaki abducted and killed the four girls in
Tokyo and neighboring Saitama Prefecture ‘‘to satisfy his
own sexual desire and appetite to own videotapes with
footage of corpses.’’
He confessed to having killed four girls, aged between four
and seven, in Tokyo and its suburbs and eating some of the
remains of two of them.
Miyazaki mutilated the bodies of the victims, slept next to
the corpses and drank their blood.
He sent letters to the media under a woman’s name claiming
responsibility for the crimes and sent a box containing the
remains of a slaughtered girl to her family.
In a letter
to Kyodo News just before the Supreme Court ruling,
Miyazaki maintained his innocence and said he thought he
‘‘did a good thing.’’
During the nearly two-decade
judicial process, Miyazaki never uttered a word of remorse
to the victims and their families. He cryptically said that
a “rat man“—a cartoonish image of which he drew—committed
the crimes.
He also distanced himself from his family. When his father,
unable to come to terms with what his son did, jumped into
a river to his death in 1994, Miyazaki wrote to a
publisher: “I feel refreshed.”
But court-appointed psychiatrists agreed with defense
lawyers that Miyazaki was mentally ill. One finding was
that Miyazaki suffered from a multiple personality
disorder, while a second said he was schizophrenic.
Hirokazu Hasegawa, a clinical psychologist who saw Miyazaki
in 2006, said the killer believed his crimes would
resurrect his grandfather, who died three months before the
grandson committed his first crime in 1988.
“What he told me lastly was ‘Please tell the world that I’m
a gentle man,’ “ Hasegawa said at the time.
The two other executed inmates are Shinji Mutsuda, 37, and
Yoshio Yamasaki, 73.
Mutsuda was convicted of killing the 32-year-old operator
and the 33-year-old manager of a sex service business at a
Tokyo apartment in 1995, stealing some 200,000 yen and
drawing 40 million yen from the bank account of the
operator in conspiracy with his twin brother.
Yamasaki was
convicted of killing a 49-year-old woman in Miyagi
Prefecture in 1985 and a 48-year-old man in Kagawa
Prefecture in 1990 in conspiracy with acquaintances of his.
Amnesty International Japan criticized the fast pace of
executions under Hatoyama, saying in a statement, ‘‘The
latest executions were carried out only two months after
the previous ones. That indicates Japan is following a path
of mass executions.’’
With 137 countries having legally or
effectively terminated capital punishment, Japan is going
against the international trend of abolishing the death
penalty, the human rights group said. Following Tuesday’s
executions, the number of inmates on death row now stands
at 102.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura
suggested at a separate news conference that the
acceleration of executions reflects the recent increase in
death sentences and the number of death row
inmates.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2008/6/18
Tsutomu Miyazaki, the notorious serial killer who butchered four girls and sent a letter and remains to a victim's parents, was among three criminals executed on Tuesday, the Justice Ministry said.
Two of the convicted killers, including Miyazaki, 45, were hanged at the Tokyo Detention House, and one was put to death at the Osaka Detention House, the ministry said.
Miyazaki's death sentence was finalized in February 2006, after the Supreme Court upheld lower court decisions that ruled he was mentally competent to take responsibility for crimes committed in 1988 and 1989 in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture.
"He had killed four girls to satisfy his sexual desire," the Supreme Court ruling said.
During his trial, Miyazaki repeatedly claimed that "a rat man" had appeared before he killed the girls. He also said he ate the wrists of one of the girls.
His victims ranged in age from 4 to 7.
Miyazaki was arrested in July 1989, when he was caught molesting a 6-year-old girl outdoors in Tokyo, about a month after he killed his fourth victim.
The letter and the remains sent to the family of one of the girls shocked the nation. The case gained even more attention after Miyazaki claimed responsibility for the killings in the media, using the female pseudonym "Yuko Imada."
Investigators found about 6,000 videotapes in Miyazaki's room, including pornography and slasher movies. Following the discovery, calls increased to restrict material that could be harmful to young people.
The three executions Tuesday bring to 13 the number of inmates put to death under Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama, who took office in August last year.
It is the highest figure under one justice minister's tenure since executions were resumed in Japan in 1993.
The previous record holder was Hatoyama's predecessor, Jinen Nagase, who approved 10 executions.
Hatoyama denied he was deliberately accelerating the pace of executions.
"We're conducting executions solemnly. As a result, the argument happened to be brought up that executions have been taking place every few months," Hatoyama told reporters Tuesday.
Under Hatoyama, three inmates were executed each in December and February, four in April, and now three in June.
According to the ministry, the other two inmates who were hanged Tuesday were Shinji Mutsuda, 37, in Tokyo, and Yoshio Yamasaki, 73, in Osaka.
Mutsuda was convicted of murdering two men--the manager and the owner of a Tokyo sex-related operation he worked for--with his twin brother in December 1995. The bodies were dumped into the sea.
Yamasaki collaborated with another man to strangle a 49-year-old female acquaintance in Sendai in November 1985. He made it appear that her death was a suicide and received about 7 million yen in life insurance.
In March 1990, Yamasaki conspired with another man and murdered a 48-year-old man in Kagawa Prefecture for insurance money.
For Miyazaki, the time between the finalization of his death sentence and the actual execution was two years and four months.
For Mutsuda, the waiting period was two years and eight months, and for Yamasaki, it was three years and four months.
For 10 years until 2007, the time between a finalized death sentence and the execution was about eight years.
There are now 102 inmates on death row in Japan.(IHT/Asahi: June 18,2008)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Convicted murderer of 4 girls executed
Tsutomu Miyazaki
Tsutomu Miyazaki, convicted of murdering four girls aged 4
to 7 in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture in the late 1980s, was
executed on Tuesday along with two other death row inmates,
Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama confirmed.
The executions brought to 13 the number of death row
inmates to be hanged under Justice Minister Hatoyama who
assumed the post in August 2007.
"These are indescribably cruel crimes in which the culprits
took the precious lives of their victims. We signed their
execution orders after carefully and cautiously considering
them," Hatoyama told a press conference Tuesday. "We carry
out executions to maintain justice and make sure that the
country is ruled by the law."
Miyazaki, 45, was hanged at the Tokyo Detention Center two
years and four months after his death sentence was
confirmed by the Supreme Court and 20 years after he
committed the first murder.
The focal point during his court hearings was whether he
was mentally stable enough to be held responsible for his
crimes.
He repeated incomprehensible statements during his court
hearings.
"I feel as if I committed the crimes in my dreams," he said
in one of his hearings.
"I was scared because a 'rat person' appeared. My alter ego
suddenly appeared and committed the acts," he said on
another occasion.
The results of psychiatric evaluations conducted on him
during the district court trial were divided.
One psychiatrist said he could be held fully responsible
for the crimes, even though he suffered a personality
disorder. Another concluded that his ability to be held
responsible for his crimes was limited because he suffered
a multiple personality disorder. The other deemed that his
criminal responsibility was limited because he suffered
from schizophrenia.
In dismissing his appeal against the death sentence in
February 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that the main
motives for his murders were based on his sexual desires
and the desire to film his victims' corpses to make videos.
Miyazaki kidnapped a 4-year-old girl in Iruma, Saitama
Prefecture, in August 1988, murdered her in a mountain
forest in Akiruno, western Tokyo, and burned her body,
according to the ruling.
He also abducted a 7-year-old girl in Hanno, Saitama
Prefecture, in October 1988, and murdered her in Akiruno,
the court found.
He was convicted of abducting another 4-year-old girl in
Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, in December of the same year,
strangling her and abandoning her body in a forest.
He was also found guilty to abducting a 5-year-old girl in
Koto-ku, Tokyo, in June the next year, murdering her and
dumping her corpse. Moreover, he molested an elementary
school girl in Hachioji, western Tokyo, in July of the same
year, according to the ruling.
On Tuesday, Yoshio Yamasaki, 73, and Shinji Mutsuda, 37,
were also executed at the Osaka Detention Center and the
Tokyo Detention Center, respectively.