Sayama case timeline

Background

The Sayama case (Sayama jiken) involves the murder of Nakata Yoshie in Irumagawa, a neighborhood in the city of Sayama (Saitama-shi) in Saitama prefecture (Saitama-ken). Nakata had graduated from middle school, thus completing her compulsory education, in March 1963. In April she began attending the Irumagawa campus of Kawagoe High School.

The Irumagawa campus was for part-time students in alternative programs. It had a four-year general program in the evening and a two-year home-economics program in the daytime. The daytime program was regarded as a "finishing school" for girls preparing for marriage. Completing its course of study qualified one as a graduate of a vocational school, not a high school.

Nakata was one of 17 first-year students in the home-economics program. She had attended classes for only 18 days when she disappeared on 1 May 1963, her 16th birthday.

Daughter missing

Nakata Sakuei, a farmer, began to worry about his fourth daughter, Yoshie, when she hadn't returned home from school by six in the evening, though it was her birthday. Around 6:50 her older brother, Kenji, went out looking for her in a car, driving along the roads she took to school, and around the closet station. Not finding her, he came home and ate dinner.

Ransom note

Around 7:40, Kenji happened to notice a white envelope slipped into a niche along the side of a glass door. Both the front and back of the envelope were addressed to his father, Sakuei. Inside was a handwritten note demanding that, if he valued his child's life, he was to bring 200,000 yen to the entrance of Sanoya by midnight the following day. The note was to become the most controversial item of evidence. [Buraku 1971-7:8]

Payoff fails

Sanoya was a small store which fronted a road along a number of cultivated fields. Behind and around it were many trees and bushes, and at night the whole area was very dark. Sayama police, with the cooperation of Masuda Hideo, who headed the local crime prevention association, arranged 200,000 yen in bills made with newsprint. Tomie, Yoshie's older sister, agreed to parade in front of the store at the appointed hour to draw out the culprit who had written the note.

About 10 minutes after midnight a man called out from the shadows around a telephone pole some ten to twenty meters down the road. He and Yoshie exchanged words for about ten minutes. Perhaps because he sensed she was not alone, though, he announced he would not take the money -- and vanished through the net of some forty police who had been positioned to apprehend him. [Buraku 1971-7:9]

Body found

About 45 Saitama police and 70 Sayama firemen were mobilized to search the fields and hills of the Irumagawa area. Yoshie's body was found around 10:30 in a fresh grave along a farm road. She'd been buried in a hole about 1.66 meters long by 80 centimeters wide and deep. Her hands and legs had been tied covered her eyes. Her skirt was up, and her drawers were down around her knees. Her legs were straight and extended. A round stone weighing some 4.65 kilograms, the size of human head, was to the right her head, and a thin cotten draw string was around her neck. [Buraku 1971-7:9-10]

Task force investigates

Saitama Prefectural Police quickly assembled a task force of some 165 personnel to investigate a case that immediately attracted nationwide attention. Not only was it sensational, but it represented another recent example of police mishandling of a kidnapping.

Yoshie's murder came barely one month after the abduction of a 4-year-old boy, Murakoshi Yoshinobu, in Tokyo on 31 March. The culprit had gotten away with a 500,000 yen ransom payment, and public opinion was highly critical of the failure of the police to apprehend him. The boy's body was not found until Obara Tamotsu, who had been a suspect but seemed to have an alibi, was arrested in July 1965. Obara was convicted and sentenced to death in December 1967, and was executed on 23 December 1971. [Buraku 1971-7:10, and other sources]

Autopsy results

An autopsy determined that Yoshie had died of aphyxiation by strangulation, and there was evidence of "violent sexual intercourse" while she was alive. Blood-type-B semen was found in her vagina. From the contents of her stomach and intestines, and from her last meal, it was estimated she had been dead for over three hours. [Buraku 1971-7:10]

Full-on investigation

Police attempted to trace the origin of every item found in the shallow grave. The victim's possessions, the tenegui used to bind her hands hands, the towel used to cover her eyes, the cotton cord around her neck. Fingerprints on the ransom note and envelope. Footprints in the field. Nothing was not examined. Police canvassed the neighborhoods and firemen combed the hills.

Suicide of possible suspect

Right in the middle of all this commotion, Okutomi Genji, formerly a farmhand for the Nakata family, killed himslef. He was one of a number of suspects because he had type-B blood and his handwriting was similar to that on the note. But police had not yet thoroughly investigated him. There were rumors in the neighborhood that Okutomi, Yoshie, and Yoshie's older sister Tomie (who also later killed herself) had been involved in a triangular relationship. [Buraku 1971-7:10-11]

Pig farm shovel found

About 17:20 in the afternoon of 11 May a shovel was found about 124 meters to the west-northwest of the place where Yoshie's body was discovered. The shovel was traced to a pigsty belonging to Ishida Kazuyoshi. At this point the investigation shifted to people having connections with the Ishida Pig Farm. Twenty some suspects surfaced, among them Ishikwawa Kazuo, who was then 24. [Buraku 1971-7:11]

Ishikawa arrested

Ishikawa Kazuo arrested by Saitama Prefectural Police in connection with another case involving theft and violence.

Ishikawa confesses

Ishikawa Kazuo confesses to Yoshie's rape and murder.

Urawa District Court trial begins

Urawa District Court holds first hearing in Ishikawa's trial. Ishikawa admits to all charges.

Ishikawa sentenced to death

Urawa District Court sentences Ishiwawa to death.

Ishikawa recants confession on appeal

Tokyo High Court holds first hearing of appeal. Ishikawa pleads he is innocent.

Buraku Liberation League supports Ishikawa

Buraku Liberation League (BLL), at its 20th annual meeting, passes a resolution to demand a fair trail to establish Ishikawa's innocence.

Tokyo High Court rejects appeal

Tokyo High Court judge Terao rejects most of the new evidence and witnesses introduced in the course of the appeal.

Tokyo High Court reduces sentence

Tokyo High Court reduces Ishiwawa's sentence from death to life imprisonment.

Appeals to Supreme Court

Ishikawa's attorneys file appeal at the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court nixes appeal

Supreme Court rejects Ishikawa's appeal, thus confirming the Tokyo High Court's ruling.

Ishikawa paroled

Ishikawa is paroled but not exonerated.

Background

The Sayama case (Sayama jiken) involves the murder of Nakata Yoshie in Irumagawa, a neighborhood in the city of Sayama (Saitama-shi) in Saitama prefecture (Saitama-ken). Nakata had graduated from middle school, thus completing her compulsory education, in March 1963. In April she began attending the Irumagawa campus of Kawagoe High School.

The Irumagawa campus was for part-time students in alternative programs. It had a four-year general program in the evening and a two-year home-economics program in the daytime. The daytime program was regarded as a "finishing school" for girls preparing for marriage. Completing its course of study qualified one as a graduate of a vocational school, not a high school.

Nakata was one of 17 first-year students in the home-economics program. She had attended classes for only 18 days when she disappeared on 1 May 1963, her 16th birthday.

Okutomi Genji (30) swallowed an agrichemical (pesticide) and threw himself down a well in back of his home two days after Yoshie's body was found. He had once been employed by the Nakata family as a fieldhand. His bloodtype was B, and his handwriting is said to have resembled the writing of the ransom note. He committed suicide the day before his own marriage ceremony. [Buraku 1971-7:15[ Witness Watabe testified both that Okutomi had nothing to do with Yoshie's death, and that the police not investigated him [Buraku 1971-7:16[. Apparently he left a note to the effect "Forgive me for going first" [Shukan Asahi, 38(5)7, pp 137-138]

Nakata Tomie, Yoshie's older sister and a principle witness, was found dead, an apparent suicide. Tomie, under the direction of police, had delivered 200,000 yen to the alleged kidnapper. She committed suicide immediately after testifying in court that the voice of the man who had come at 10 past midnight on the morning of May 3 May to receive the ransom money was just like Ishikawwa's [Buraku 1971-7:14-15]. There were rumors of a triangular relationship between Okutomi, Tomie, and Yoshie (page 11).

Ishida Torizo commited suicide. Ishida was an older brother of Ishida Butaya, who had also became a focus of the investigation. [Buraku 1971-7:15]

Masuda Hideo, who had accompanied Tomie to Sanoya when she delivered the ransom, died after the trial had began [Buraku 1971-7:15]. Masuda had also been the chariman of a local crime prevention association.

Ogawa Shogoro, who had discovered Yoshie's wrist watch, also aided shortly after the trial began. [Buraku 1971-7:15]

Background

The Sayama case (Sayama jiken) involves the murder of Nakata Yoshie in Irumagawa, a neighborhood in the city of Sayama (Saitama-shi) in Saitama prefecture (Saitama-ken). Nakata had graduated from middle school, thus completing her compulsory education, in March 1963. In April she began attending the Irumagawa campus of Kawagoe High School.

The Irumagawa campus was for part-time students in alternative programs. It had a four-year general program in the evening and a two-year home-economics program in the daytime. The daytime program was regarded as a "finishing school" for girls preparing for marriage. Completing its course of study qualified one as a graduate of a vocational school, not a high school.

Nakata was one of 17 first-year students in the home-economics program. She had attended classes for only 18 days when she disappeared on 1 May 1963, her 16th birthday.

Sources

"Sayama jiken no keika"
[The development of the Sayama case]
Buraku (Rinjigo) [Buraku (Special issue)]
23(8)275, July 1971, pages 8-17

Kamei Tomu
"Sengo saidai no saiban Sayama jiken no
'tettei-teki shin-shogen' o happyo suru"
[Report of "conclusive new testimony" in
Sayama case, the postwar trial]
Shukan gendai, 21 July 1977, pages 162-165

"Mata hitori, mo go-nin mo jisatsu shita
Sayama jiken no 'Yatsuhakamura'"
[The "Yatsuhakamura" of the Sayama case, in which
five people, and now another, have committed suicide]
Shukan shincho, 20 October 1977

Saki Ryozo
Dokyumento Sayama jiken
[Document Sayama case]
Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1977, 221 pages, hardcover

Sayama Jiken Bengodan
and Buraku Kaiho Domei Chuo Honbu (compilers)
[Sayama Case Defense Group
and Buraku Liberation Leaggue Central Headquarters]
Ishikawa Kazuo Gokuchu nikki
[Ishikawa Kazuo's prison diary]
Tokyo: San'ichi Shobo, 1977
289 pages, hardcover

Hinamoto Masahiro (editor)
Hiraguchi Hiromi (illustrations)
Enzai: Sayama jiken
[False accusation: Sayama incident]
For Beginners series 26
Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 1984
175 pages, softcover

Morii Akira
Sayama jiken to ha: Enzai to sono kozo
[The Sayama case: The false charge and its structure]
Osaka: Buraku Kaiho Kenkyujo, 1988
87 pages, softcover
Jinken bukkuretto 13 [Human rights booklet 13]

Ritoru Moa (Editor)
Sayama jiken: Ishikawa Kazuo / Gokuchu 27 nen
[Sayama incident: Ishikawa Kauzo's 27 years in prison]
Tokyo: Ritoru Moa, 1991
Scenario of 1990 16mm color film of same title
Directed by Koike Masato
A Siglo production
Planning by Chuo Sayama Toso Honbu and
Buraku Kaiho Domei Chuo Honbu
[Central Sayama Sruggle Executive Committee and
Buraku Liberation Leage Central Executive Committee]

Kamata Satoshi
Sayama jiken: Yonjuichi-nenme no shinjitsu
[Sayama case: Facts of the 41st-year]
Tokyo: Shisosha, 2004
447 pages, hardcover

Bessatsu Takarajima (editor)
Sengo mikaiketsu jiken shi
(Hanko no zenbo to "shin hannin X")
[History of postwar unsolved cases
(Entire picture of the crimes and "New cuprit X")]
Tokyo: Takarajimasha, 2005
128 pages, mook (Bessatsu Takarajima 1188)

Reviews over forty incidents that occured in Japan since the end of World War II, and which the compilers consider unsolved. Most of the incidents involve murder. They are broken down into various groups. The first group is called "10 Big Unsolved Cases" and begins with the murder of Nakata Yoshie in Sayama in 1963, as it is chronologically first in the group.

The inside front and back covers feature a photograph of the Nakata Yoshie's funeral procession. The same photograph is shown undivided though smaller in the article. It is both a moving work of art and an anthropological study of then dying local funeral practices.

Family, relatives, neighbors, and others are sloshing through the rain and mud, some wearing rubber boots, some with umbrellas. Four mean are steading Yoshie's casket, which has been tied to an ordinary body is in a casket, which sits on a platform that has been mounted on the top of an ordinary bicycle-wheeled cart. Two other men are following right behind the cart, on either side, each carrying a pair of long bamboo boughs, to ward off spirits along along the way to the crematorium.

The procession has just gotten underway from the large front yard of the Nakata home, a long house with a high single-ridge thatched roof. Some small sheds and outbuildings frame the yard on either side of the house. The photographer has climbed one of them to take the picture. The cart, clothing, and umbrellas are the most obvious clues that you are not seeing a funeral at a late Edo or early Meiji farm house.