Not Your Ordinary Child… Boy Who Murdered 21-Year-Old Woman: “Fearful Flesh Voice and Handwritten Letter

In August 2008, a 15-year-old boy was murdered in a large shopping mall in Fukuoka. Following on from Part 1: Why the perpetrator’s mind was distorted, we will now take a look at what triggered the incident.

After being shuffled from one facility to another since the fourth grade, Hayato Tanizawa (a pseudonym) was released from a juvenile reformatory during the summer vacation of his third year of junior high school. Initially, he was supposed to return to his divorced mother.

However, the decision was reversed at the last minute. His mother refused to take him in for financial reasons. She had been having an affair with another man after divorcing her husband, and this may have been a problem in addition to her financial situation.

The juvenile reformatory was in a hurry to find another place to accept her. That was the Tagawa Fureai Gijuku, a rehabilitation facility for juvenile delinquents in Fukuoka Prefecture. The facility had a reputation for rehabilitating juveniles, and the idea was to have them live there so that they could be rehabilitated and set on the path to independence.

Why was he released into the wild in a state of near panic?

When Hayato met with Ryo Kudo, the head of Tagawa Fureai Gijuku, he behaved normally and expressed his intention to be rehabilitated.

However, deep down inside, he was filled with despair that his mother had abandoned him. It was only natural that his wish to live with his family, which he had held for so long, was suddenly cut off.

The juvenile reformatory probably didn’t take this very seriously. And, not surprisingly, just before leaving the juvenile reformatory, they unilaterally suspended the drug therapy (medication for developmental disabilities) that had been provided until then.

The doctor said, “The juvenile reformatory is a place for children to get rid of their emotional ups and downs.

It is quite common for juvenile training schools to give drugs to control the ups and downs of emotionally volatile youths. If he takes the medication, he can suppress his emotional waves to a certain extent. If he also stated that he was feeling fuzzy, it must have been effective.

This is not to say that the medication can’t be stopped when the juvenile leaves the juvenile detention center, as was the case with this juvenile. If the child is not able to go to the hospital and continue taking his medication when he returns to society, he may suddenly deteriorate, so for such children, the dosage of medication is gradually reduced for months in advance, counting backward from the day of release.

Of course, abruptly stopping the medication would be a bad thing. The brake that had been applied by the medication would be lost. If, like the boy in this case, he feels hopeless because his mother has abandoned him, there is a possibility that he will act in ways that were unimaginable.

In other words, it is possible that the problem lies in the fact that the juvenile court suddenly made him stop taking his medication. If the doctor’s point is correct, Hayato was released into the wild in a near-panic state of mind.

On August 26, Hayato left the juvenile reformatory and was transferred directly to Tagawa Fureai Gijuku. At this point, there was nothing unusual about him that could be seen from the outside. However, he was only wearing a mask.

The next day, on the 27th, Hayato escaped from Tagawa Fureai Gijuku after only one day. He took a bus to Fukuoka City.

After his arrest he stated that he was trying to find work (in Fukuoka City). However, his subsequent behavior indicates that this was merely an impulsive act, and he must not have had any proper purpose in mind.

The incident occurred the next day. Hayato arrived in Fukuoka City and, with nowhere to go, visited a shopping mall near the Fukuoka PayPay Dome. There, he shoplifts a set of two kitchen knives and while walking around, he sees a 21-year-old woman who is the victim of the incident. He then follows her with an inflated sexual interest.

At the time he stole the knives, he must have been thinking of having sexual intercourse with the woman. However, we must say that his behavior, including the subsequent incident, is so puzzling. What does this mean?

As mentioned in ” Refracted Sexual Trauma in Childhood,” delivered on September 19, Hayato had a habit of venting his negative emotions by masturbating whenever he was caught up in them since he was in elementary school. It is easy to imagine the despair of having been abandoned by his mother and the anxiety of not being able to see the future swirling within him at this time.

Perhaps if he had been in a juvenile reformatory, he would have relieved his depression by masturbating or by attacking those who stood by him. But being out in the community for the first time in seven years, he tried to relieve his negative feelings not by masturbation but by actual sexual activity. So he shoplifted a kitchen knife, happened to meet the female victim, and followed her to the women’s restroom.

Different Meaning from “Intent to Kill

When you look at it this way, it all makes sense. However, the reality was not as it seemed.

When the victim noticed Hayato holding a kitchen knife in the bathroom, she immediately tried to tell him off. However, Hayato took this as a sign of disrespect and ridicule, and turned the tables on her. He stabbed her to death with a kitchen knife in his hand.

Until now, Hayato has always used ejaculation or violence to vent all of his negative feelings. At the time of the murder, he was not allowed to have sexual intercourse, so he turned to violence and committed the crime out of his own selflessness. This is something different from what is commonly referred to as “the will to kill. Of course, this is irrelevant to the victims.

In the summer of 2010, two years after the murder, a jury trial was held in Fukuoka District Court. Although there was no dispute about the facts, the major point of contention was the treatment of the boy.

The prosecution, while understanding that Hayato had problems in his upbringing, argued that the brutality of the case warranted a heavy sentence. That meant imposing a prison sentence in a juvenile prison for the purpose of punishment.

The defense, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of the internal problems that Haya had, and argued that since punishment alone would not lead to improvement, he should be given medical care and rehabilitated through treatment. That meant sending them to a medical juvenile reformatory.

As we have already seen, it is clear that Hayato has suffered a great deal of trauma from his poor family environment. During the seven years he has lived in the institution, he has received no trauma treatment.

The psychological evaluation of the trial revealed that Hayato has the following problems due to trauma

Lack of empathy

Lack of guilt

Strong sense of victimization

Underdevelopment of personality integration

Denial of emotional relationships

Inferiority complex

・Care conflicts

This indicates that if the problems he is having are not resolved through trauma treatment, he may reoccur when he enters society.

The aforementioned physician states the following.

There are established methods for trauma treatment. It would be to calm him down with medication for a certain period of time, and at the same time to do psychotherapy. Specifically, we would confront the trauma, remove anxiety and fear, and learn how to control stress.

In the case of the boy in this case, we would be guiding him to release stress in ways other than sex and violence. It is difficult to say exactly how long the treatment will take because of the characteristics of the individual, but if we can do it over several years in an environment where the individual feels safe, we can expect to see some positive effects.

In Hayato’s case, it will not be easy because of the combination of his developmental disabilities and hypersexuality issues. However, if he can receive trauma treatment at the East Japan Compulsory Medical and Educational Center, a medical reformatory where advanced treatment can be expected, rather than the Kyoto Medical Juvenile Training Center where he used to be, a certain effect can be expected.

I don’t know if I will ever be sane.”

What the trial court handed down on July 25 of this year, however, was a verdict in favor of the prosecution: an indeterminate sentence of 10 to 15 years. It indicated that he would be sent to a juvenile prison for punishment, rather than to a medical reformatory for specialized treatment.

The seriousness of the case, the regret of the victim’s family, and public opinion were probably the major factors behind this decision. It may have been that the public would not remain silent if he was given a protective sentence.

Hayato decided not to appeal and to accept the judgment. When we met with him at the Fukuoka Detention Center on the last day of the appeal deadline, Hayato said the following.

I don’t know if I can be decent by going to a juvenile prison. （I don’t have confidence that I will be able to change after 10 or 15 years in society. I don’t have confidence that I will be able to change when I go out into the world in 10 or 15 years, because I have always been the same, and I don’t really know what it means to change.

Hayato’s behavior has been marked by violent outbursts ever since he can remember, and he has never had the experience of meeting anyone who could serve as a model for him in life. Therefore, he cannot imagine what he should aim for before rehabilitation and treatment.

He also said.

I have been living in an institution since I was in the third grade of elementary school, and it would be easier for me to stay in an institution for a long time. I can’t imagine living in society at all. I think that if I were suddenly sent out into society, there is a possibility that I would do the same thing again (as in the incident). But I can’t imagine that either.

Having lived only in an institution since the third grade of elementary school, it may be as difficult for him to imagine independence as it is for him to imagine life in outer space.

The question is, if in a dozen years or so Hayato comes out into society with the same problems he has now and causes a similar incident again, who will be responsible?

Not allowing him to receive treatment even though the relationship between the trauma and the incident is clear is what we might call neglect in the state.

One month after the verdict, the Ministry of Justice announced that some juvenile prisons would introduce rehabilitation efforts based on the findings of juvenile training schools. While this in itself is commendable, “medical care” is not included in the policy that was put forth. In other words, it is not expected to go as far as trauma treatment.

The only hope for now is that the lawyers, rehabilitation facilities, and private support groups that were involved with Hayato after the incident have turned a warm eye on him and are willing to continue to support him. Conversely, Japan’s rehabilitation system is so riddled with holes that it is impossible to rely on the goodwill of individuals like Hayato.

Hayato wrote to a person from a private support group with whom he corresponded during his detention: “I think I am not a normal child.

I think I am different from ordinary children. I don’t know what normal is before that. I don’t know what normal is, but I don’t think I am normal. I think that’s why this incident happened. I think I was off in every way.”

This sentence conveys the feeling that he is desperately trying to understand what “normal” is.

Who is going to teach him what “normal” is? How will they make him “normal”? The only person who can do that for him, who has been sent to a juvenile prison, is the government.