Keychain, keychain in the field May 5 at 1:20

It was an event that would later become a murder case.

I covered many such incidents, but I can't forget the keychain in this case.

He came out in a scene that no one had imagined and asked various questions.

I thought that question had meaning now, so I interviewed it again.

(Network News Department, Tatsuro Imono)

Unreasonableness from one word

It was a cold February night.

The man was trapped in the trunk of a car.

He was tied behind his back with adhesive tape to prevent him from moving, and his hands, feet, and face were wrapped around him so that he could not speak.

They were placed in a larger bag, and the mouth of the bag was also tied.

The man was about to be killed.

It all started with a few words he uttered when he got into trouble at a store he had entered a few hours earlier and was beaten and kicked by the men in the store.

"I'm going to tell the police,"

he said, and the men thought, "We have to shut up."

For such an unreasonable reason, the man was kept in the trunk of a running car looking for a place to kill.

At home was his wife and a four-year-old girl, waiting for him to return.

Dawn, Dawn

How could that have been done?

"Boom," "Dawn,"

I heard a man wrapped in tape so much that he couldn't move, kicking a car from inside the trunk.

Somehow, he managed to untie the tape.
(When interviewed again, the police later taped a police officer of the same physique as the man and experimented with him to untie it.) Didn't unwind. The men were so desperate to untie it)

The men, panicked by the state of the trunk, stopped the car in a place called a field where there were no people around.

Four people got out of the car, took up positions around the trunk with shovels and other items, and prepared to beat them.

One person opens the trunk.

The man ran outside.

He runs loudly towards the field and the men follow him to catch him.

Crowded out, the male gets caught.

He was severely beaten on the spot, and when he was taken back to the car, there was no way to resist and he was taken further away.

The dying man was murdered there using the belt of a man's coat.


In
the morning, the man's wife came to the police.

"My husband is not coming home."

The unreasonableness of "if you think you're small-minded"

When

the police officer asked his wife if there was something to do, he told the police, "Only my husband will not leave without contacting me,"

showing the strength of his will that I was sure that something had happened.

The police station had several other major incidents, but the chief was quick to make a decision, and a team of several dozen people started the investigation at once.

While listening to the story in the downtown area around the station, the store where the man had entered and left was identified, and it was immediately clear that there was trouble.

After a while, men related to the store were arrested on suspicion of extortion caused by trouble.

He also began to give statements admitting to the killings.

As many things became known, it seemed that there was an opinion among the men that it would not be until they took their lives.

However, a man with an unreasonable motive, such as "If you flinch at that opinion, you will be considered a small-minded person," held the man, and the man was killed.

Initially, however, the police were unable to arrest the men on suspicion of murder.

However, I couldn't find it.

His body was sent abroad and there is no physical evidence that he killed the man.

A confession alone cannot be arrested for murder.

So the police put one of the central figures in the car and tried to show him where the man allegedly escaped from the trunk.

Here's what the police think.

The men testified that they "beat the man in the field."

If anyone notices the situation or if there is any evidence, the veracity of the confession increases.

Wouldn't that bring us one step closer to arrest for murder?

However, it was difficult to find the place.

On the day of the incident, the men were driving "aimlessly" down a pitch-black road in search of the murder site.

Keychain in the field

The police ask the man, "Is it around here?" but say something like, "It's not clear."

Still, there was a place that said, "Hey, isn't it around here?" and a police officer and a man got out of the car.

He tried to find out if anyone remembered what the field looked like at that time.

I looked around, but there was only one farmer.

A police officer goes to listen to the story.

"Wasn't there a field that was vandalized about a month ago?"

"Come on, I don't know."

I just got a reply like that.

"Not here," the officer said, feeling resigned, and got into the car to look for another place.

That was then.

Once I returned home, a farmer came back and said, "I have a request."

"You're a police man, there's something like this in the field,"
"It's a lost item, take it."

What the farmer had in his hand was a small keychain.

It came with a case for photos.

Inside was a picture of a smiling girl.

She was the four-year-old eldest daughter of the man who was killed.

Police officer's conviction

The police officer was convinced that the keychain had been thrown by the man on his way to escape.

The keychain has a hook that does not come off easily once you put it on.

If you dropped it when you were assaulted, the keychain is disposed of by the men.

Rewind time further and think about it.

Before being put in the trunk, the men were talking about "killing" the men while tying him up with tape, and of course it reached the men's ears.

Even if you manage to escape from the trunk, there is a high possibility that you will be chased by a large number of people and caught.

Being caught in this situation is the same as being killed.

In other words, the man threw a keychain when he realized he had been murdered and would never see his family again.

And the fact that the keychain was in the field was unknown to the arrested man or the police suddenly increased the veracity of the confession.

What the dying threw without knowing if he would be found increased the veracity.

I can only imagine what I thought and threw from these facts, but it is not difficult to imagine that I wanted to tell my family something at the end while being aware of death.

Looking up at the ceiling

Other evidence emerged and the men were eventually rearrested on suspicion of murder.

Then it was time for the prosecutor to seek a sentence for the man at the center of the case.

It was in that courtroom.

The prosecutor, who was supposed to hand down the sentence, suddenly looked up at the ceiling as he read his argument.

I started reading again, but I looked up at the ceiling again.

I could see from those around me that I was trying not to let the tears fall down.

He was told over time that he was asked to be sentenced to 15 years in prison.

It's okay if you don't have a dad

When I searched for where the prosecutor was now to cover this incident, he had already retired.

Upon further investigation, I found out that he was a lawyer in the Kanto region, and we met at a law firm.

When asked about the courtroom, he said, "This is the only time I cried while working as a prosecutor."

The story continued as if remembering little by little.

"The loss of a man means that the bereaved family will not have enough income to live, and I thought that the house would have been company housing, and that there might be no place for the two parents and children to live,"

he said, but he does not remember the details of the argument.

Therefore, I decided to apply to the Public Prosecutor's Office to read the court records at that time.

About a month and a half later, I was given permission to view the transcript of the argument.

The records were blacked out, but it was clear that the prosecutor had emphasized the unreasonableness of the case.

"The defendant was considered to be small-minded and frightened, and since he could not maintain his prestige, he decided that killing the victim was unavoidable in order to maintain his face and organization."

And what he was talking about in court was the family that was left behind.

"The victim's wife and eldest daughter had been praying for the victim's survival for a long time since the day of her disappearance, but in vain they were informed that she had been killed."

"The bereaved families are unable to crawl out of the depths of despair, and the victim's wife is still raising her eldest daughter while feeling sick and desperately holding back her grief that she has to be firm. The eldest daughter says scornfully, 'I won't be lonely without my daddy,' and encourages herself and her mother and is desperately trying to survive." "However, my living expenses are running out sooner or later, and I don't even have a prospect for my future life."

Having finished reading the record, I remembered the words spoken by the former prosecutor in his office.

"It's usually unreasonable for people to get killed."

Now

It takes the life of one person.

How hard it is.

Will it take away not only lives, but also the hope of loved ones?

In Japan, about 1 people a year are killed in murders.

However, this is a story in a part of the world of Japan, within the limited circumstances of incidents, and many times more people are dying in the name of military invasions and wars in the world today, even though without them, they would not have lost their hopes and dreams, and would not have given birth to people who grieve.

It sounds like there is a big difference between one of the Japan incidents and the world situation, but there is no change in the fact that each person who dies has a loved one, and killing increases the number of people who are sad.

I also think that what the thrown keychain now asks is that there are people who have died from unreasonable things even at this moment, and that each of them has someone who wanted to continue to live and love.

I am reminded that many people who lose their lives have feelings of regret.

People are not born to grieve, so I warn myself that I must do what I can so that unreasonable things do not go away, and I do not rest on being in a safe and secure position.

Have you become so accustomed to conflict that you become insensitive to communicating the importance of life and the grief of losing someone you care about?

I wonder if I am becoming desensitized because I am not on the side of grief, and I am not starting to watch pain on the sidelines, while admonishing myself.

If you are on the side of grief, if you are on the side where your life may be unreasonably taken, you must be thinking, "Do something," "Speak up," and "Act more."

(The man at the center of the case was sentenced to 13 years in prison.)
The keychain thrown in the field was handed over to the man's family after the investigation.)