14 SEPTEMBER 2004:
Sueo Shimazaki, 59, was hanged in Fukuoka.
CASE: He was convicted of killing three gangsters in 1988.
Mamoru Takuma (宅間 守 Takuma Mamoru, November 23, 1963 – September 14, 2004) was a Japanese janitor who committed mass murder of 8 people and wounded 15 others in the 2001 Osaka school massacre. He had been convicted and imprisoned for rape before the massacre.
CASE: The Osaka School Massacre took place on June 8, 2001, at Ikeda Elementary School, an elite primary school affiliated with Osaka Kyoiku University in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. At 10:15 that morning, 37-year-old former janitor Mamoru Takuma entered the school armed with a kitchen knife and began stabbing numerous school children and teachers. He killed eight children, mostly between the ages of seven and eight, and seriously wounded thirteen other children and two teachers. Takuma was later convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on September 14, 2004. The Osaka School Massacre was the second largest mass murder, along with the Matsumoto incident, in recent Japanese history, exceeded both of the crimes only by the fatalities caused in the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. This incident, however, was set apart by the young age of the victims, by its occurrence at a school, and by the murderer's history of mental illness. Because of these factors, the Osaka School Massacre raised questions in Japan about the country's social policies regarding the treatment of mental illness, the rights of criminals and victims, and the accessibility and security of Japanese schools.
The boy was in the first year and the girls were in the second year.
• Yuki Hongo (本郷優希 Hongō Yūki)
• Mayuko Isaka (猪阪真宥子 Isaka Mayuko)
• Yuka Kiso (木曽友香 Kiso Yūka)
• Ayano Moriwaki (森脇綾乃 Moriwaki Ayano)
• Maki Sakai (酒井麻希 Sakai Maki)
• Takahiro Totsuka (戸塚健大 Totsuta Takahiro) (the only male student to die in the attack)
• Hana Tsukamoto (塚本花菜 Tsukamoto Hana)
• Rena Yamashita (山下玲奈 Yamashita Rena)
16 SEPTEMBER 2005:
Susumu kitagawa, 58, was hanged in Osaka.
CASE: He was a convicted of robbing, raping and murdering a girl in Chiba Prefecture in 1983 and slaying a woman in Kochi Prefecture in 1989 in a similar manner. Kitagawa was the 8th inmate executed since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office in April 2001. The execution was the 1st signed by Chieko Noono, who became justice minister last September. It has been about 1 year since the last executions, when Mamoru Takuma went to the gallows for murdering 8 children in Osaka in 2001 in a school attack, as did triple-murderer mobster Sueo Shinmaki. The Supreme Court in February 2000 rejected Kitagawa's appeal of his sentence. Kitagawa, from Kochi Prefecture, raped and strangled an 18-year-old girl in the city of Chiba and took 15,000 yen from her in August 1983, and raped and murdered a 24-year-old woman in Kochi and took 20,000 yen from her in February 1989, the top court said.
25 DECEMBER 2006:
Hiroshi Hidaka (日高 広明, Hidaka Hiroaki, April 1962 – December 25, 2006 in Hiroshima) was a Japanese serial killer. Hidaka was born in the Miyazaki Prefecture. He was originally an excellent student, but he failed to enter the University of Tsukuba, his target college. He entered the Fukuoka University instead, but eventually dropped out. He often borrowed money, drank and went to prostitutes. In April 1989, he moved to Hiroshima and began to work as a taxi driver. Hidaka married in 1991, and had a daughter in 1993, but his wife entered a mental hospital.
CASE: Hidaka killed and robbed four women between April and September 1996. One of his victims was a 16-year-old girl who engaged in Enjo kōsai. He was arrested on September 21, 1996. The district court in Hiroshima sentenced Hidaka to death on February 9, 2000, a sentence he didn't appeal. He was executed by hanging on December 25, 2006. After his execution, his lawyer, Shuichi Adachi, protested that he had been illegally refused access to his client by prison authorities.
Yoshimitsu Akiyama, 77, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: Akiyama was convicted of murdering a factory boss in Chiba in 1975 and robbing him of 10 million yen. For the rest of his life, he maintained that his brother Taro, who was convicted of a lesser offense in the incident, bore most responsibility for the crime.
Yoshio Fujinami, 65, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: Fujinami attacked his ex-wife's family with a knife in Tochigi Prefecture in 1981, killing two of her brothers and robbing the family. His defense lawyers argued that he was addicted to amphetamines and had snapped after his in-laws prevented him from meeting his estranged wife.
Michio Fukuoka, 64, was hanged in Osaka.
CASE: He claimed that he was innocent of killing three people, including his wife's sister, over three years between 1978 and 1981 in Kochi Prefecture in Shikoku. He protested to the end that the police forced his confession and ignored his alibi.
27 APRIL 2007:
Yoshikatsu Oda, 59, was hanged in Fukuoka.
CASE: He was sentenced to hang in March 2000 for the murders of two people in which he tried to acquire their insurance money. The Fukuoka District Court ruled in 2000 that he conspired with an acquaintance to fatally stab the couple, who were in their 20s, and make it look like a double-suicide. Oda remained mum on the charges against him during the early stages of the trial but later owned up to the slayings. His sentence was finalized after he withdrew his counsel's appeal to the Fukuoka High Court.
Masahiro Tanaka, 42, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: Masahiro Tanaka's death sentence was upheld by the top court in September 2000. Tanaka was arrested for four murders between 1984 and 1991, including choking his aunt to death and stabbing a porn shop owner in Kagawa Prefecture. He was also convicted of fraud, robbery and of dumping his aunt's corpse.
Kosaku Nada, 56, was hanged in Osaka.
CASE: According to information provided by Amnesty, Kosaku Nada was put to death for the 1983 slaying of a coworker's wife and her son in Hyogo Prefecture. Nada strangled the mother with a rope and dropped the 4-year-old son from a bridge into the Chikusa River. He used the insurance card he stole from the woman to obtain 1 million yen in loans from a consumer lender. Nada had claimed he did not intend to kill the two. The Supreme Court in September 1992 finalized his sentence.
24 AUGUST 2007:
Hifumi Takezawa, 69, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: In 1990, Takezawa, a taxi driver, killed a 68-year old man whom he mistakenly believed was having an affair with his wife. He took him into a forest, forced him to write a fake suicide note, strangled him and set fire to his car. Three years later, for the same reason, he and an accomplice broke into a house and stabbed to death a man and his wife before burning down their house. His lawyers argued that a stroke had turned Takezawa into a jealous paranoiac who was not responsible for his actions, but his appeals were rejected.
Kozo Segawa, 60, was hanged in Nagoya.
CASE: He shot to death the owner of a Toyama Prefecture-based temp-staff agency and the man's wife in May 1991, and stole ¥12 million from their house. He was also charged with other cases of fraud and theft. The Supreme Court finalized his sentence in January 2001.
Yoshio Iwamoto, 62, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: He was executed for the 1996 slaying of a 40-year-old woman in Tokyo's Toshima Ward during a robbery. In 1997, he also murdered and stole ¥240,000 from a distant relative who owned a plating factory in Tokyo's Taito Ward. Later investigations revealed he was in debt because of his pachinko habit. Iwamoto owned up to the charges at court and had asked for capital punishment. His sentence was finalized in 2001.
7 DECEMBER 2007:
Seiha Fujima, 47, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: He fatally stabbed a high school girl, 16, her 13-year-old sister, and their 45-year-old mother in 1982 at their home in Kanagawa Prefecture, after the girl turned down his romantic advances. He then stabbed to death a man, 19, who had helped him kill the 3 women, in Hyogo Prefecture. In 1981, Fujima killed a 20-year-old man in Yokohama because of a dispute over money.
Hiroki Fukawa, 42, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: On 22 March 2001, the court found Hiroki Fukawa, 35, guilty of stabbing Shin Yamada and her 65-year-old daughter, Hiro, to death in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward. He reportedly wanted to steal their money to pay off the club where his hostess girlfriend worked.
In supporting prosecutors' demand for the death penalty, the court said Fukawa bears grave responsibility for "the loss of two precious lives."
Describing Fukawa's conduct as "persistent and cruel," the court said it had no choice but to sentence him to death. According to the court, Fukawa visited the residence of the Yamada family, who were his clients, to borrow money in April 1999.
Fukawa wanted the money to convince his live-in girlfriend to quit her hostess job, it said.
After Shin refused to lend him money, Fukawa stabbed her and her daughter to death and then unsuccessfully attempted to find some cash to steal, the court said.
Handing down the punishment, presiding Judge Kiyohi Kimura said Fukawa's crime came about because of his selfish motivation to make a good impression on his girlfriend and to monopolize her.
Saying Yamada had also swindled two other women out of 9.57 million yen in early 1999 to spend on his girlfriend, the judge said Fukawa apparently had no idea of the value of money and had an extraordinary attachment to her.
Noboru Ikemoto, 75, was hanged in Osaka.
CASE: He was convicted of three murders and one attempted murder in a dispute with a neighbour over rubbish in 1985, the ministry said. He fatally shotgunned a distant 46-year-old relative and his spouse at the relative's house in June 1985 after having a heated debate with the couple over litter on his property. Ikemoto then went outside and shot a 71-year-old neighbor to death and wounded a bystander. His appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court in March 1996.
1 FEBUARY 2008:
Takashi Mochida, 65, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: Mochida was initially handed a seven-year prison term in 1989 for burglary and raping a 37-year-old woman in Tokyo. He returned to murder the victim in 1997 after serving his sentence, fatally stabbing her with a kitchen knife several times at a housing complex in Koto Ward.
The Tokyo District Court sentenced Mochida to life imprisonment, but the High Court overturned the sentence and condemned him. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling and his sentence was finalized in October 2004.
Keishi Nago, 37, was hanged in Fukuoka.
CASE: Nago was convicted of fatally stabbing his 40-year-old sister-in-law and his 17-year-old niece in August 2002 at their home in Isencho, Kagoshima Prefecture. His 13-year-old nephew sustained severe chest wounds and was hospitalized for 88 days.
The Kagoshima District Court sentenced Nago to death in 2004 and the sentence was finalized when he withdrew his high court appeal that year.
Masahiko Matsubara, 63, was executed in Osaka.
CASE: Matsubara was convicted of breaking into a home in Yamakawacho, Tokushima Prefecture in April 1988 and raping and murdering a 61-year-old housewife and stealing ¥28,000. He was also found guilty of raping and killing a 44-year-old housewife in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture, two months later, and stealing ¥99,500. Matsubara had been convicted three times for robbery prior to the killings.The Supreme Court upheld the lower court rulings and finalized Matsubara's death sentence in April 1997. He had sought a retrial, but the request was rejected last October.
10 APRIL 2008:
Kaoru Okashita, 61, was executed in Tokyo.
CASE: He was convicted of killing 2 people nearly 20 years ago including an 82-year-old woman with whom he had a property dispute.
Okashita, who also went by the surname Akinaga, later wrote traditional tanka poetry from death row in which he expressed remorse over his crimes and reflected on life waiting to die.
Keiko Mitsumoto, 62, the head of a tanka club who edited and published Okashita's poetry, said she had just sent him back his latest proof-read verse a few days ago.
"He once told me he hoped to live until next year when our group's tanka anthology is published. But his wish wasn't realised," she told AFP, her voice breaking with emotion.
She said that Okashita each month sent her 10 tanka poems -- an ancient
form of Japanese verse with 31 syllables.
"His poetry was very, very gentle and even offered solace and encouragement to me. I could hardly believe he would commit murder," she said.
"He said he feared the day would suddenly come when the footsteps of a guard would stop in front of his cell to announce his execution," she recalled.
"He seemed prepared for that, though, along with not meeting those close to him for a final farewell."
Masahito Sakamoto, 41, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: He was convicted of raping and killing a high-school girl.
Katsuyoshi Nakamoto, 64, was hanged in Osaka.
CASE: He was convicted of killing a jeweller and his wife to steal the gems and cash.
Masaharu Nakamura, 61, was hanged in Osaka.
CASE: He was found to have killed two men by drugging their drinks.
17 JUNE 2008:
Tsutomu Miyazaki (宮﨑 勤 Miyazaki Tsutomu, August 21, 1962 – June 17, 2008), also known as The Otaku Murderer, The Little Girl Murderer, and Dracula, was a Japanese serial killer. He was executed by hanging in Tokyo.
CASE: Between 1988 and 1989, Miyazaki mutilated and killed four girls, aged between four and seven, and sexually molested their corpses. He drank the blood of one victim and ate her hands. These crimes — which, prior to Miyazaki's apprehension and trial were named "The Little Girl Murders", and later known as the Tokyo/Saitama Serial Kidnapping Murders of Little Girls (東京・埼玉連続幼女誘拐殺人事件 Tōkyō Saitama renzoku yōjo yūkai satsujin jiken) — shocked Saitama Prefecture, which had few crimes against children.
During the day, Miyazaki was a mild-mannered employee. Outside of work, he randomly selected children to kill. He terrorized the families of his victims, sending them letters recalling in graphic detail what he had done to their children. To the family of victim Erika Nanba, Miyazaki sent a morbid postcard assembled using words cut out of magazines: "Erika. Cold. Cough. Throat. Rest. Death."
He allowed the corpse of his first victim, Mari Konno, to decompose in the hills near his home, then chopped off the hands and feet, which he kept in his closet. They were recovered upon his arrest. He charred her remaining bones in his furnace, ground them into powder, and sent them to her family in a box, along with several of her teeth, photos of her clothes, and a postcard reading: "Mari. Cremated. Bones. Investigate. Prove."
Police found that the families of the victims had something else in common: all were bothered by silent nuisance phone calls. If they didn't pick up the phone, it would sometimes ring for 20 minutes.
On July 23, 1989, Miyazaki attempted to insert a zoom lens into the vagina of a grade school-aged girl in a park near her home and was attacked by the girl's grandfather. After fleeing naked on foot, Miyazaki eventually returned to the park to retrieve his Toyota car, whereupon he was promptly arrested by police who had responded to a call by the grandfather. A search of Miyazaki's two-room bungalow turned up a collection of 5,763 videotapes, some containing anime and slasher films (later used as reasoning for his crimes). Interspersed among them was video footage and pictures of his victims. He was also reported to be a fan of horror films and had an extensive collection, with the centerpieces being the first five Guinea Pig films; he reportedly used the fourth film in the series as a template for one of his killings. Miyazaki, who retained a perpetually calm and collected demeanor during his trial, appeared indifferent to his capture.
The media soon came to call him "The Otaku Murderer". His bizarre killings fueled a moral panic against otaku, accusing anime and horror films of making him a murderer. However these reports were disputed: in Eiji Otsuka's book on the crime, he argued that Miyazaki's collection of pornography was probably added or amended by a photographer in order to highlight his perversity. Another critic, Fumiya Ichihashi, suspected the released information was playing up to public stereotypes and fears about otaku, as the police knew they would help cement a conviction.
Miyazaki's father refused to pay for his son's legal defense, and eventually committed suicide in 1994.
The trial began on March 30, 1990. Often talking nonsensically, he blamed his atrocities on "Rat Man," an alter ego whom Miyazaki claimed forced him to kill; he spent a great deal of the trial drawing "Rat Man" in cartoon form. Believed to be insane, Miyazaki remained incarcerated throughout the 1990s while Saitama Prefecture put him through a battery of psychiatric evaluations. Teams of psychiatrists from Tokyo University diagnosed him as suffering from dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) or extreme schizophrenia. However, the Tokyo District Court judged him still aware of the gravity and consequences of his crimes and therefore accountable. He was sentenced to death on April 14, 1997. His death sentence was upheld by both the Tokyo High Court, on June 28, 2001, and the Supreme Court of Justice on January 17, 2006.
He described his serial murders as an "act of benevolence" and never apologized. Child killer Kaoru Kobayashi described himself as "the next Tsutomu Miyazaki or Mamoru Takuma." However, Miyazaki claimed that "I won't allow him to call himself 'the second Tsutomu Miyazaki' when he hasn't even undergone a psychiatric examination."
Kunio Hatoyama signed his death warrant and Miyazaki was hanged on June 17, 2008. Although the unusual swiftness of his execution as well as its timing soon after the Akihabara massacre prompted questions regarding the two incidents, the Ministry of Justice had no comment. Ryuzo Saki said, "His trial was long" and that he was "not willing to criticize Hatoyama."
Shinji Mutsuda, 37, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: He had been on death row for the murder and robbery of two people.
Yoshio Yamasaki, 73, was hanged in Osaka.
CASE: He was convicted of killing two people for the insurance money.
11 SEPTEMBER 2008:
Yoshiyuki Mantani, 68, was hanged in Osaka.
CASE: He was convicted of killing one woman, attempting to kill a second woman and robbing and wounding a third woman in Osaka from August 1987 to January 1988. He had been released from prison on April 30, 1987, after serving an earlier sentence for murder and robbery. His death sentence was finalized in December 2001.
Mineteru Yamamoto, 68, was hanged in Osaka.
CASE: He was convicted of murdering and robbing his cousin and the cousin's wife in July 2004 in Kobe because he wanted gambling money. He also conspired with another to commit three thefts in 2003. His sentence was finalized in April 2006.
Isamu Hirano, 61, was executed in Tokyo.
CASE: He was convicted of killing and robbing a ranch owner for whom he was working and the owner's wife in Tochigi Prefecture in December 1994. Hirano also torched the owner's house after the murder. His sentence was finalized in October 2006.
28 OCTOBER 2008:
Michitoshi KUMA, 70, was hanged in Fukuoka.
CASE: He was condemned to death in October 2006 by the Supreme Court. He was accused of murdering 2 young girls (both 7 years old) in February 1992. He claimed his innocence throughout the trial butcourts found him guilty based on the result of DNA test conducted by police, while the other result of the test by Teikyo University was negative. Kuma kidnapped two seven-year-old girls on their way to school in southern Japan in February 1992 and strangled them, dumping their bodies in the mountains.
Masahiro TAKASHIO, 55, was hanged in Sendai.
CASE: He was originally sentenced to life imprisonment by Iwaki Branch of Fukushima District Court.
But Sendai High Court overturned the decision and sentenced him to death. He withdrew his appeal to the Supreme Court and the sentence became final.
He is the 1st executed inmate who's original sentence was life imprisonment AND whose sentence was convicted without exhausting his right to appeal after executions were resumed in 1993. He was accused of murdering 83-year-old mother and her 55-year-old daughter and robbery of about 50,000 yen (approx. 500 US dollars). He broke into a house in northern Japan in March 2004 and stabbing a 55-year-old woman and her 83-year-old mother to death before stealing 50,000 yen, or about $500.
28 JANUARY 2009:
Yukinari Kawamura, 44 and 39-year-old Tetsuya Sato were both hanged in Nagoya.
CASE: They were both convicted of killing two women and burning their bodies in steel barrels.
Shoji Nishimoto, 32 was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: He was convicted of killing four people in separate home invasion robberies.
Tadashi Makino, 58, was executed in Fukuoka.
CASE: He was convicted of killing four women in separate home invasion robberies.
28 JULY 2009:
Hiroshi Maeue (前上 博 Maeue Hiroshi, August 8, 1968 - July 28, 2009), aka "Suicide Website Murderer", was a Japanese serial killer, who lured his victims via the internet and killed three people in 2005. Maeue suffered from a paraphilic psychosexual disorder which translated into being unable to achieve sexual release absent of performing an act of strangulation.
CASE: Maeue murdered three people after his release in 2005; he was convicted of killing a 14-year-old boy, a 25-year-old woman, and a 21-year-old man, all of whom were members of an online suicide club. He lured his victims by suggesting they meet and end their lives together by committing suicide via a charcoal burner in a sealed car. After a brief conversation, however, he would strangle them with his bare hands. This brought him sexual pleasure, and he later claimed he developed his desire to kill this way after reading of similar events in a mystery novel as a child. All three of his victims were killed within a span of four months.
Trial and death
In his trial, prosecutors called Maeue a "lust murderer." On March 28, 2007, the Osaka District Court sentenced him to death. Although his defence team launched an appeal, he accepted the judgment of the court and expressed a willingness to pay for his crimes with his life, retracting his protest in July 5, 2007.
On July 28, 2009, Hiroshi Maeue was hanged in Osaka, along with 25-year-old condemned criminal Yukio Yamaji.
Yamaji Yukio (山地 悠紀夫 Yamaji Yukio, August 21, 1983 – July 28, 2009) was a Japanese triple killer. He murdered his own mother in 2000, and then murdered a 27-year-old woman and her 19-year-old sister in 2005.
CASE: Yamaji was born into a poor family and his father died of cirrhosis in January 1995. After he graduated from junior high school, he did not enter high school and began working at the newspaper store. He killed his 50-year-old mother with a metal baseball bat in Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi Prefecture on July 29, 2000 at the age of 16. He called the police and was arrested on July 31. One of his motives was his mother's silent telephone to the woman who he fell in love with. Another motive was his mother's debt. He was paroled in October 2003 and was released officially in March 2004. However, his work after the release was illegal.
On November 17, 2005, Yamaji raped a 27-year-old woman and her 19-year-old sister and murdered them with a knife, in Naniwa, Osaka. He then set fire to their room and escaped. The two victims had never met Yamaji. He was arrested on December 5, 2005. He said to the Osaka police, "I could not forget the feeling when I killed my mother, and wanted to see human blood."
On December 13, 2006, the Osaka District Court sentenced him to death. His defense made an appeal but he retracted it on May 31, 2007. His execution by hanging took place in Osaka on July 28, 2009.
Chen Detong, 41, was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: He was executed in Tokyo for killing three of his compatriots and injuring three more in Kawasaki, southwest of Tokyo, in 1999.
28 JULY 2010:
Kazuo Shinozawa, 59 was hanged in Tokyo.
CASE: He received a death sentence after he was found guilty of setting fire to a jewelry shop in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, in June 2000. Shinzawa was taking part in a robbery which netted ¥140 million ($1.6 million). Six female workers from the jewelry shop died in the fire.
Hidenori Ogata, 33 was executed in Tokyo.
CASE: He was convicted of murder over the deaths of a man and a woman, and was also convicted of attempting to murder two other women in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, in 2003. He stabbed a man and woman to death in 2003.
