Nearly two decades have passed, and the heartbreaking murder of four members of the Miyazawa family is still a big question mark for Japanese police. What makes the case strange is that the perpetrator left behind a lot of evidence, DNA, and fingerprints, but so far no one has found his identity.
On December 30, 2000, the Miyazawa family returned to their house in Setagaya, Tokyo as usual, not knowing that they were stepping into death. The husband, Mikio Miyazawa, 44 years old, is an employee at a British consulting company. The wife, Yasuko, is a teacher. They have an 8-year-old daughter, Niina, and a 6-year-old son, Rei. The Miyazawa family is inherently gentle and never makes enemies. They live in a quiet and deserted residential area, so no one understands why their family had to suffer such a tragic end.
The tragedy shocked all of Japan
The residential area where the Miyazawa family lived was located near a skateboard park that was expanding, so most of the residents there had moved away. At the time of the incident, there were only 4 families living here, including the Miyazawa family, Ms. Yasuko’s sister’s house right next door, and 2 other families located nearby.
The construction and operation of the park caused a lot of noise and discomfort for the Miyazawas. The couple had planned to move to another place in early 2001, but before they could do so, they were suddenly killed.
At around 11:30 a.m. on December 31, Ms. Yasuko’s mother (who lives next door) kept calling the home phone number but could not get through. Feeling strange, she went to ring the bell loudly but no one opened the door. Finally, she used the spare key to enter the house to check but unexpectedly discovered a horrifying scene. The youngest son of the Miyazawa family was strangled to death, and the remaining three members were stabbed to death with multiple knives.
Police quickly sealed off the scene around the house to conduct an investigation to find criminals. According to the analysis, the perpetrator climbed the trees outside the house to break in from the first-floor window. He went to baby Rei’s bedroom and strangled the boy first.
Mr. Mikio, who was working on the ground floor at that time, heard a strange noise and ran up to check and discovered the perpetrator. After a brief struggle, Mikio was stabbed to death with a sharp knife. He collapsed on the stairs leading to the 2nd floor, the knife was also broken. Mother and daughter Yasuko and Niina were sleeping in the attic so they didn’t know what was going on. The perpetrator ransacked the house, took another knife, then climbed to the top floor and killed the two remaining members of the house.
According to forensic examination, the Miyazawa family was murdered around 11:30 p.m. In addition, the knife wounds of the female victims were more brutal and intense than the male victims, making the police suspect that this guy had a strong sexist ideology.
After committing the crime, the perpetrator wandered around the scene for 10 hours, went online, and ate ice cream as if nothing had happened.
If normally after committing a crime, the perpetrator would quickly erase their traces and leave the scene, but this cold-blooded murderer is the complete opposite. After brutally killing 4 people, the perpetrator naturally opened the refrigerator to eat and used the computer to go online, as comfortable as his own home. Evidence obtained showed that he used feminine hygiene solutions to disinfect and bandage the wound during the struggle with Mikio.
Next, he opened the refrigerator, ate 4 ice creams, and 1 cantaloupe, and drank barley tea. He wandered around the house, looking through all the family’s papers to see. This guy was so calm that he opened the victim’s computer to surf the web and buy concert tickets. After finishing, he lay on the sofa to rest until the next morning and used the computer again to find information about where Mikio worked and where Yasuko worked. Before escaping, he carefully changed his clothes, leaving his old clothes neatly folded at the scene.
It seems that this murderer was not afraid at all because at the scene the police collected many of his fingerprints, blood samples, and DNA. Items he abandoned included sneakers, a fanny pack, a black handkerchief, a hat, a scarf, and gloves. The style of the killer’s outfit and the perfume he used were familiar brands to skateboarders.
The investigation stalled for 18 years despite much evidence
Police determined that this was not a murder for money because there was a lot of cash in the victim’s house and valuable items were not lost. On the contrary, before leaving the scene, the perpetrator took a coat, all the family’s New Year’s cards disappeared, and the computer’s power cord was not found.
Investigation showed that the jacket the killer left behind was sold seasonally and that about 130 such shirts were sold in Tokyo. However, they were only able to track down 12 of those buyers and all of them had evidence to prove their innocence.
The fingerprints and DNA of the culprit found were useless because there was no information in the data system, but the police were able to outline brief information about the perpetrator. He is about 170 cm tall, has a fit figure, is between 20-30 years old, and is most likely a mixed-race child with a European mother and a Chinese, Korean or Japanese father.
According to testimony from relatives, about 5 days before the incident, Ms. Yasuko told her father-in-law about a strange car that kept parking right in front of their house. Two days later, a strange man in his 40s was seen wandering around the house. The day before the murder, a man matching the police description was seen at Seijogakuenmae train station. The witness clearly remembered this person because his clothes that day were quite thin in the cold weather of the last days of the year. On December 30, around 11:35 p.m., a suspicious man who seemed to be in a hurry was seen at Sengawa station, about a mile from Miyazawa’s house, possibly on his way to commit a crime.
As of 2015, about 246,000 police officers were involved in the investigation of the case. The police also received up to 16,000 pieces of information from the public, the reward was increased from 3 million to 20 million Yen for anyone who could provide information to help the police catch the murderer, however To this day, the police are still unable to find the murderer.
Every year on the anniversary of the Miyazawa family’s death, Japanese metropolitan police officers come to the victim’s house to hold a ceremony and bow to apologize. Every year they reiterate their promise that they will do everything they can to find the perpetrator and return justice to the victims. They also formed a separate team of 37 people to continue investigating and solving the mysterious case of the Miyazawa family.
