"Why is my son?" at the end of the dark bite ... May 5 at 30:14

"I went to school normally, studied, worked part-time, connected with friends... I wanted him to live a normal life,"

but his wish did not come true.
Just two months into college, his son died in a car accident.

Riding in the car with him were members of the theft case gathered in "Dark Bite".

Why did his son, who was quiet, end up committing a crime?
Through interviews with his father, he was able to see a son that even his parents did not know.

(Otsu Broadcasting Station Reporter Kanta Marumo)

Sudden phone call

Ototoshi, May 2021, 5.
In the early afternoon, suddenly, my home phone rang.

"My son died in an accident,"

said a police officer on the other end of the phone.

"I hope it's a mistake,"

he said, and headed with his wife to the police station in Shiga Prefecture where he was instructed.
The body is shown for identification.

"No, not my son,"

he said reassuringly, before being asked to confirm one more person.
It was my son who was there.

"It was definitely my son, and I felt like I was already struggling and collapsing."

Early in the morning, a mini car carrying five people, including his son, who was in his first year of university at the time, was parked in a tunnel on the Shin-Meishin Expressway in Shiga Prefecture because it ran out of fuel.

A large truck rear-ended the collision.
Of the five people in the minicar, two were killed and three were seriously injured, including his son.

My son just entered university in April of that year and started living alone in Shiga Prefecture.

Why were you involved in an accident and where were you going?
There was nothing that came to mind, and my mind was confused.

SIM card in my son's room

Later that day, I headed to the room where my son lived.

I saw a lot of SIM cards, women's watches, and sunglasses. None of them were tied to my son.

Suspiciously, I contacted the police and received unexpected words.

"I want you to leave it as it is, there may be an incident."

"When I saw all the things that came out, I felt something disgusting, I wondered what happened even though I had only been out [of my parents' house] for about two months. I felt like I had glimpsed a world I didn't know about."

Two months after the accident, I received several calls from the police.

"A safe was found in the inside of a mini car, and it turned out to be stolen from a house in Nagoya City,"

the detective told him.
His son was also involved in the theft.

The three men and a woman who were in the car with them were arrested and charged with theft and other crimes.

His son was both a victim of a car accident and a perpetrator of a theft.

On the other hand, the living expenses they had given were left almost untouched.

Why did my son, who thought he was living a normal college life, take part in the incident and die as a result?

My son was called "Nishida"

The trial began more than five months after the accident.
Wanting to know the truth, he went with his wife.

It was revealed that the incident was caused by a "dark bite".

▼ The five sons involved in the theft met through SNS and other means, and contacted each other through Telegram, a communication app that disappears messages over time.

▼ They didn't know each other's identities and called each other "Queen" and "Cat" by the names of their Telegram accounts.

▼ My son was called "Nishida". It was a pseudonym.

▼ The five of them gathered in Osaka, committed a crime in Nagoya, and had an accident on the way home.

▼ The son pressed the intercom of the house where he was trying to steal and confirmed the absence of the residents.

▼ A passenger took away the SIM card of his mobile phone and ordered him to "break the window glass if you want it back."

▼ When fleeing from the scene where the safe was stolen, he was about to be left behind.

In addition, from the statements of the three men, we learned that my son was crying on the way to Nagoya because he didn't want to commit the crime, and that he was standing at the scene where he stole the safe.

From
the statement of a passenger, "Even on the way to Nagoya, [my son] was sometimes in tears, saying that he really wanted me to go home."

Another passenger took the cell phone from [my son] and played with it by sending lines without permission."

"[My son] was still in a panic or he was standing in front of the house, not trying to get into the car. I remember being very impatient, thinking that if (my son) was caught, we would be caught."

"I gradually heard a lot of stories, and I had an indescribable feeling, and I realized later that I was being used, but I felt like I couldn't do it."

On the other hand, at the trial, it was not clear why the son was complicit.
Even after the "Dark Bite"

trial, which had no connection with the image of the son he knew, he continued to search for answers.

The parent-child relationship was good, but ...

My son has always had a quiet personality and has loved trains since he was a child.

He attended a private school that integrated junior and senior high school, and also served as student council president during junior high school.
He is good at mathematics, and after graduating from high school, he entered the science department of a university.
Even when I reached puberty, the two of us went on trips together.

Even after I started living alone when I went to university, I had a good relationship with them on LINE, such as "what did I eat that day?"

One month after entering university, my son had blonde hair when he returned home for the long holiday in May.

I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.

"There are a lot of college students like that these days, so I felt like it was a change in the same way as other people, but it didn't seem to have changed."

The real reason why my son became blonde

But behind the scenes, my son's life was changing beyond my imagination.

After the accident, a business card with gold letters printed on a black background was left in the room where his son lived.

When my wife called the number on it, it was the host club.

My son started working at a host club in Minami, Osaka, right after entering university. That's why I dyed my hair.

An active host
who knew about the time: "I think he was a scary child at first impression, as if he came out today with luggage. I was a rookie at the time, so we talked about working hard together."

At that time, due to the Corona disaster, the university held online classes.
My son was attending classes from the host's dormitory.

But that's not all.
My son started posting videos when he was in high school and talked about his admiration for hosts.

"When I went to school, I realized that my conversation skills weren't improving that much, so I wanted to be a host in order to learn that," she said.

I want to be famous. I just want to earn registrants."

On the other side of the screen was a son I didn't know.

"I didn't expect them to send out such a message, and I was surprised, because they said that there are ways to make that kind of money in the world, so I felt like I was looking for something."

However, the world of hosting, which he should have longed for, had quit within a month.

Smartphone search history has "dark bytes"

Shortly after quitting as host, his son seems to have become involved with the "dark part-timers".

After the accident, I found my son's smartphone search history with the word "Dark Bite."

In addition, in the cloud where his son kept his photos, there were screenshots of the Telegram exchange.

From there, it was clear that they had sent personal information such as their names and accounts, and sent what looked like scripts for "kakeko" making fraudulent phone calls.

As a reminder, I repeatedly told them that I would work until the end of May.

Was his son complicit in crimes other than the theft of the safe?

His son's smartphone was handed over to the police, but it is still unclear what the exchange was.

"I don't want to believe it, but I may have been scammed ... It's indescribable."

On May 2021, 5, the day before the accident, my son went to a bookstore in Osaka City, waited there for 29~5 hours, and then joined 6 others and drove to the crime scene.

Early the next morning, when the mini car was rear-ended by a large truck, my son was in the trunk instead of in the seat. He was thrown out of the car and died.

Why did he participate in the dark part-time job, and why did he have to die like that?

I didn't know why until the end.

The day before my son died, I invited him out for dinner.

"Would you like to have lunch if you don't have an appointment tomorrow?"

the LINE message is still unread.

"I don't feel any emotion."

What do the members who were in the car with me think about the death of their son?

A letter sent by one of the passengers to NHK shows the tenuous relationship between the members gathered in the dark part-time.

"We weren't relatives or friends, I didn't know their real names or ages, they wore a hood and a mask, so I didn't really recognize their faces, and we only saw each other twice a night. When a stranger in red dies after being rammed into a truck, I don't feel any emotion."

"Dark Bytes" that anyone can easily get involved in through SNS.

The father urges them not to forget the dangers that lie behind the ease.

"Normally, I would have liked to bow to the victim with my son and apologize to the victim that I was really sorry, but now that my son has died, I can't do that."

"When I get solicitations from strangers on social media, or I follow them, I can't turn back, and they cut me off like a lizard's tail. Each and every one of us must make a firm judgment of right and wrong, without resorting to sweet words."

Close-up Contemporary

"My son" I don't know ~ The truth of the surging dark bite "fall" ~
May 5, 30:7 pm

Otsu Broadcasting Station
Reporter Kanta
Marumo Joined the bureau in 2021 in charge of police and justice. During the trial, the sight of his father clenching his fists the whole time left an impression on me and I started interviewing him.