Kobe child murders

The Kobe child murders (Japanese: 神戸連続児童殺傷事件, Hepburn: Kōbe renzoku jidō sasshō jiken) occurred in Suma, Kobe, Japan on 16 March and 24 May 1997, when two children, 10-year-old Ayaka Yamashita (山下 彩花, Yamashita Ayaka) and 11-year-old Jun Hase (土師 淳, Hase Jun) were murdered. Yamashita was fatally injured in a series of assaults on elementary school girls between February and March 1997 while Hase was abducted, strangled, and mutilated before his severed head was left in front of a school.

The perpetrator, 14-year-old Shinichiro Azuma (東 真一郎, Azuma Shin'ichirō)^[1][2] used the alias Seito Sakakibara (酒鬼薔薇 聖斗, Sakakibara Seito) to write two messages to the public following the discovery of Hase's remains in May 1997, taunting police and threatening to commit more murders. Azuma was arrested in June 1997 and confessed to the murder of Jun Hase. He also admitted to killing Ayaka Yamashita and three additional attacks on schoolgirls.

As a juvenile offender, Azuma was prosecuted and convicted as "Boy A". Azuma's real name has not been officially released to the press because Japanese law prohibits publishing the identification, but in some weekly magazines his real name has been reported. Beginning in 2004, Azuma was released on provisional basis, with full release announced to follow on 1 January 2005. The murders and subsequent release of Azuma gained widespread attention from Japanese media and politicians.

On 10 February 1997, Shinichiro Azuma attacked two 12-year-old sixth-grade students of Minami-Ochiai Elementary School, at around 16:35 near an apartment complex in Nakaochiai district. The two girls were returning home when Azuma struck them in the back of the head. One of the injured girls required a week of treatment for the head wound.^[3]

On 16 March, at around 12:25, Azuma bludgeoned 10-year-old Ayaka Yamashita, a fourth-grade student of Ryugadai Elementary School, near a residential building in Ryugadai, causing her death the following week. Ten minutes after the attack, Azuma stabbed and injured a 9-year-old girl with a 13-cm dagger outside of Tatsugaoka Park.^[3] The same day, Azuma wrote in his diary: "I carried out sacred experiments today to confirm how fragile human beings are... I brought the hammer down, when the girl turned to face me. I think I hit her a few times but I was too excited to remember."

The following week, when Yamashita was declared brain dead, he added on 23 March: "This morning my mom told me, 'Poor girl. The girl attacked seems to have died.' There is no sign of me being caught... I thank you, "Bamoidōkishin",^[4] for this... Please continue to protect me". As revealed in Azuma's manuscript "13 Years Imprisonment" ("懲役十三年"), "Bamoidōkishin" refers to an apparent deity, evidenced by the character 神 for "kami", whom Azuma claimed to have "created from hatred" in his childhood. The manuscript details a contract which would end with Azuma serving thirteen years in prison for committing murders as part of a "crime pact" to pledge allegiance with "Bamoidōkishin" in exchange for forgiveness of the same crimes.^[5]

On 15 May, Azuma stopped attending his third-year class at Tomogaoka Junior High School, after an incident two days earlier in which he had phoned a classmate for a meeting in the park and chipped some of his teeth by punching him in the mouth with his watch around the fist. His parents were regularly taking him to a children's psychiatrist during this time.^[6] The assault on the classmate was considered the high point in a number of other "eccentric delinquent acts" at his school, including stealing and burning other students' shoes, hitting people with a table tennis racket and slashing bicycle tires with a box cutter.^[7]

Just before 14:00 on 24 May, while walking a street of Tomogaoka, Azuma encountered 11-year-old Jun Hase, a special education pupil at Tainohata Elementary School, where Azuma had attended primary education. Hase was lured to Tank Mountain in Taihata, claiming he would show Hase a turtle.^[8] Azuma overpowered him and fatally strangled Hase using the strings of the boy's shoelaces. He then stole a hacksaw and padlock from a nearby co-op supermarket, and broke into an empty TV signal relay station on the mountain, in which he hid Hase's body. Hase was reported missing by his family the same evening.^[9]

On 25 May, Azuma returned to the station, where he beheaded Hase's body between 13:00 and 15:00. He further mutilated Hase's head by stabbing out both eyes, cutting into Hase's cheeks, and unsuccessfully attempting to cut out his tongue. Azuma took the head and left Hase's body inside the building.^[9] Azuma first hid Hase's head in a hole near Irikakunoike pond, but he brought the head home on 26 May. There was a widespread search for Hase by this point through Hyōgo Prefectural Police, the Kobe Fire Department, and Tainohata Elementary School's PTA, due to which Azuma assumed that he would soon be caught and believed that leaving a human head in a public place would draw attention away from him. He chose his junior high school for the location, since he thought it would implicate the school staff in the killing.^[3]

In the morning of 27 May 1997, at around 2:00, Azuma snuck out of his room through a window and drove to Tomogaoka Junior High School with his bicycle, carrying Hase's head in a plastic bag in the bike's satchel. He tried to place the head on the outer wall, but it fell down, after which Azuma left the head in front of the gate, stuffing a handwritten note into Hase's mouth, taking care to have the signature of the letter visible. He returned home after watching the head for six to seven minutes.^[3]

Hase's head was found a few hours later. While Azuma had planned for Hase to be seen by his fellow pupils when they arrived for school, a passerby instead discovered the head before opening hours. The note, which was written with each sentence in a vertical listing, was published in newspapers the same day and read:^[10]

Now, the game begins.

Stupid police officers. Try to stop me. I find killing extremely enjoyable. I can't help but want to see people die. Death is the punishment for those filthy vegetables. Bloodshed justice for a long-standing grudge.

SHOOLL KILL

— Sakakibara, the School Murderer^{[notes 1][11]}

Azuma used the term "vegetables" to refer to people around him; he had learned this term from his parents, who had once told him, "if you are nervous at your sports day, picture the people around you as vegetables."^[9] According to Azuma, he wrote the word "SHOOLL KILL" because he believed it to be English for "school killer". The note also included a symbol which Azuma later described as "inspired by the inverted swastika of Nazi Germany", after reading Mein Kampf while in elementary school.^[3]

Hase's decapitated body was found at the relay station a few hours after his head. Newspapers connected the murderer of Jun Hase to the attacks on girls in February and March.^[3]

Police commented that the style of Hase's killing and the note was reminiscent of that of the Zodiac murders in the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s. According to friends of Shinichiro Azuma, he had developed a fascination with the case through the 1986 true crime book Zodiac by Robert Graysmith when its Japanese translation was published.^[12]

Having heard of the discovery of Hase, Azuma was surprised that his murder site was also found. In the news, it was first thought that "Sakakibara" was a "highly-educated" adult man in his 30s due to the formal kanji used in the letters. However, linguists noted that these expressions were common in popular manga and it was suggested that the perpetrator was not a social person since the texts weren't very colloquial,^[13] to the point where it was considered that the writer was a Chinese speaker.^[14] There were two prevailing descriptions of middle-aged men in menial workwear reported around Tank Mountain at the time of Jun Hase's murder. There was the "Padlock Man", who was seen at the same store where Azuma stole tools. Another was the "Scooter Man", who was seen driving a scooter near the mountain. Both men were identified in mid-June and quickly dismissed as suspects.^[15] Other reports focused on suspicious vehicles seen during the previous attacks, either a black Nissan Bluebird sedan or white van, with varying descriptions of their drivers. The rumours persisted until Azuma's arrest.^[16]

The newspaper Sankei Shimbun speculated that the perpetrator was left-handed due to the angle of wounds inflicted on the injured girl on 16 March. According to police reports, however, the investigation believed that the perpetrator was right-handed due to noticeable pressure marks found on the base of Jun Hase's head.^[14]

Based on the news reports, Azuma assumed that he was unlikely to be caught since police were looking for an adult and decided to write a manifesto to the press, since he was worried that the note left on Hase's body didn't express his worldview clearly enough. Azuma wrote the messages in what he thought was the style of a man in his 30s from an unstable homelife who resented the school system for bullying. He made several drafts in his school lab class notebook, incorporating some phrases and kanji characters from the previous note, before copying the writing onto a separate sheet. The letter was postmarked on 3 June with no address or name. Afterwards, Azuma burned the pages containing the original draft.^[17]

On 6 June, the letter was sent to the newspaper Kobe Shinbun. Enclosed was a three-page, 1400-character letter, also written in red ink, which included a six-character name that can be pronounced as "Sakakibara Seito". The same characters, which mean "alcohol", "devil", "rose", "saint" and "fight", were used in the first message that was inserted into the boy's mouth. In the letter, "Sakakibara" claimed responsibility for the slaying and decapitation of Jun Hase, and threatened that more killings would follow. He included the slightly revised signature "SHOOLL KILLER".^[18]

Azuma had begun the letter by addressing a mistake made by a local TV broadcaster, which mispronounced the "Sakakibara" name as "Onibara" – "Demon Rose", which he disliked, writing that he wanted to be called by his "real name". The letter largely blamed the Japanese educational system for his actions, claiming "compulsory education formed me, an invisible person." He also accused police of putting no effort into the investigation to "cover up [his] existence", which was supposedly a recurring event in his life. Azuma claimed that his crimes differed from "pathetic revenge" in that he stylised the murders as a game which created for him "a new world all your own", further writing "I am putting my life at stake for the sake of this game... If I'm caught, I'll probably be hanged... police should be angrier and more tenacious in pursuing me....". He stated that he was driven by a natural urge to kill, writing "It's only when I kill that I am liberated from the constant hatred that I suffer and that I am able to attain peace. It is only when I give pain to people that I can ease my own pain." At the end of the letter, he wrote "From now on, if you misread my name or spoil my mood I will kill three vegetables a week. If you think I can only kill children you are greatly mistaken. I have the ability to kill the same person twice."^[19][3]

Kobe Shinbun assumed that the letter was authentic and similar in nature to those by the "Otaku Murderer", Tsutomu Miyazaki, who also wrote taunting letters to authorities with the purpose of confusing police.^[20]

Azuma was given a voluntary order to be questioned by police in Hase's murder on 28 June. He first denied involvement, but after police claimed to have matched his handwriting, Azuma started crying and confessed to killing Jun Hase, as well as Ayaka Yamashita.^[21] He also admitted to attacking three other girls. He was then officially arrested for murder and abandonment of a corpse.^[3] According to Azuma, Seito Sakakibara was the name he gave his "bad side" when he was in elementary school,^[3] also claiming that Hase's beheading was part of a ritual. While his identity remained hidden, a photo of Azuma was published on 2 July by the photo magazine FOCUS. By the time a recall was ordered by various newspaper publishers, most issues had already sold out, with Shukan Shincho continuing the sale, editing a censor bar over Azuma's eyes. FOCUS and Shukan Shincho refused to comply with a continued order by the Ministry of Justice.^[8]

On 13 July, police were provided a complete confession by Azuma about the course of events leading to the murders, as well as the explanations for some details in his letters.^[9] The weapons used in the murders and assaults, three hammers and a dagger, were found in Mukaihata pond on 7 July. Azuma was officially indicted for the assaults on 16 July and placed in a juvenile holding facility on 25 July.^[22]

Azuma was tried at Kobe Family Court beginning 4 August 1997.^[9] After Azuma claimed to experience auditory hallucinations, EEG, CT and MRI scans, as well as chromosome and hormone testing were performed, which found no abnormalities.^[9][23]

A psychological examination determined that Azuma had conduct disorder and some symptoms of depersonalisation and dissociation, although these were not significant enough to result in diminished responsibility as he was otherwise aware of his actions. Azuma had been attending psychiatric treatment since 1995 and was previously diagnosed with ADHD. It was noted that Azuma had a history of torturing and killing animals, starting with insects and frogs in fifth grade and later admitting to killing at least 20 cats by his mid-teens. In elementary school, he also had a habit of making dirt sculptures with sharp blades hidden inside.^[7] Through Azuma's statements, it was determined that he had acted out sexual sadism, as he stated that he could only arouse himself through acts of violence, through which he achieved spontaneous ejaculation, and was not attracted to either girls his age or women in general. Azuma had hoped that killing a human would give him even greater pleasure than killing animals and that he considered everyone but himself a "vegetable". Azuma was described as holding nihilist beliefs and lacking both self-esteem and empathy. He voiced no regret for the crimes, stating that it was Jun Hase's own fault for going with him.^[23]

On 13 October 1997, under the decision of judge Igaki Yasuhiro, he was set to be detained indefinitely at the Kanto Medical Juvenile Training School. During this time, there was an attempt to have two psychologists act as "pseudo-parents" to Azuma, which saw limited success. In 1998, Azuma attempted to stab another juvenile with a ball-point pen, after the latter made a lewd comment about a female psychologist, whom Azuma had previously described as "the ideal mother".^[24] In 1999, an out-of-court settlement was reached following a lawsuit by the family of Ayaka Yamashita, who were set to receive 80,000,000 yen in compensation.^[25]

In November 2001, Azuma was transferred to Tohoku Juvenile Training School due to a good assessment in rehabilitation by staff.^[25] He was initially there under a false name, but Azuma eventually revealed his identity as "Sakakibara" when asked by other students. He was repeatedly bullied for this, culminating in an incident during summer 2002, in which Azuma stripped half-naked and threatened his peers with a ball-point pen. When the other boys were removed from the room by counsellors, Azuma stabbed himself in the genitals with a box cutter. This incident resulted in an extension to his detainment at the school until at least the end of 2004 by Kobe Family Court. In March 2003, however, the school successfully applied for Azuma's provisional release.^[26]

After the murders, politician Shizuka Kamei called for restricting objectionable content, stating, "Movies lacking any literary or educational merit made for just showing cruel scenes... Adults should be blamed for this", and that "[the incident] gives adults the chance to rethink the policy of self-imposed restrictions on these films and whether they should allow them just because they are profitable."^[27]

Through 1997 and 1998, a faction of the Japan Revolutionary Communist League led a number of break-ins at facilities holding case files related to the Kobe child murders, illegally distributing the information under the belief that "Boy A" was wrongly accused as part of a government conspiracy, in what is known as the Kakumaru-ha incident related to the Kobe incident.

Azuma's parents divorced because of his actions. His father left Kobe and changed his name, publishing a book entitled "Boy A: Birthing this Child" (「少年A」この子を生んで……), with all proceeds going to the Yamashita family.^[25][28] Although Azuma's father was apologetic for his son's actions, he was criticised for not knowing the names of the girls non-fatally assaulted by Azuma.^[28]

In 2000, Japan's bicameral legislature lowered the age for criminal responsibility from 16 to 14. However, in the wake of the 1 June 2004 murder of Satomi Mitarai by 11-year-old "Girl A" in Sasebo, there has been some discussion for the need for further revision.^[29]

On 11 March 2004, in an unprecedented act, the Japanese Ministry of Justice announced that Azuma, 21 at the time, was being released on a provisional basis, with a full release to follow on 1 January 2005.^[30] He was set to live by himself on the property of his probation officer in Saitama Prefecture.^[31] Critics have charged that since the government had taken the unusual step of notifying the public, that Azuma was likely not fit for release and should be transferred to prison. In the wake of the Sasebo slashing, three months later, this criticism was exacerbated.

Due to the seriousness of the crimes and the fact that they had been committed by a minor, his name and new residence to this day remain a highly guarded secret, hence why Azuma was typically referred to by the official alias "Boy A" or the self-given moniker "Seito Sakakibara". Nonetheless, his real name has been circulated on the internet since 29 June 1997, according to journalist Fumihiko Takayama.

A number of people, including Shōjirō Gotō (a lawyer who dealt with many false accusation cases), Hidehiko Kumagai, and Nobuyoshi Iwata (former principal of the junior high school that Boy A attended), insist that Boy A was wrongfully accused and point out contradictions in the statements of the investigating authorities. Some examples:

• It's alleged that police investigators said that one of the murders was made by a left-handed person — Boy A is right-handed.
• Boy A's confession contained many absurd statements and claims of things that would be impossible for a 14-year-old to do.
• Boy A had bad grades, and yet his confession was complex (if cryptic) and contained many elaborate figures of speech and similes.

In 2002, Azuma's mother visited him at the juvenile facility and asked him if he had really committed the crimes. He affirmed this to her.^[32]

In June 2015, Azuma, then aged 32, released an autobiography through Ohta Publishing titled Zekka (絶歌), in which he claimed to express regret for his crimes and recounted the murders in graphic detail.^[33] Despite attempts by Jun Hase's family to block the release of Zekka, and despite one bookstore chain refusing to stock the book, it quickly reached the top of Japanese bestseller lists.^[34] Azuma earned an estimated 10,000,000 yen through the sales. A few months later, Azuma set up a vanity website in which he posted bizarre photoshopped images of a nude male, suggested to be himself.^[35][36] In response to these controversies, the tabloid Shūkan Post publicized his real name of Shinichiro Azuma, as well as his location and occupation at the time.^[2]

• List of major crimes in Japan
• Neomugicha incident
• Real World, a novel by Natsuo Kirino based on the Kobe child murders
• Sasebo slashing
• Son of Sam law
• Zodiac Killer

• Sympathy for the devil Al-Ahram Weekly, 18 March 1999
• 神戸事件の真相を究明する会 The meeting which studies the truth of Kobe case