Playback ’05] The Nakatsugawa Family Murder Case: The Motive of the “Gentle Uncle” who Murdered a Family

The motive was a long-standing grudge against a “toxic mother.

The motive for the crime, which became clear during X’s trial that began in July 2005, was “a feud between X and his mother, Ms. A.” Originally, X had disliked Ms. A, who had been strict with him since elementary school. After X’s marriage, they lived separately, but around 1999, X’s younger brother, who was living with Ako at the time, asked him to take her in and live with him.

Although they began living together in this way, Ms. Ako began to “bully” X’s wife, and it seems that her bullying was quite severe. She also defecated in the bathtub after taking a bath so that she could not take a bath, and put raw garbage in the bathtub.

X had been growing angrier and angrier with Ako, but one month before the incident, a decisive event occurred. On January 27, 2005, it was necessary to change the deposit of the postal savings account in Ms. Ako’s name, and the postmaster explained this to her. At that time, Ms. Ako had a hard time with the postmaster and cursed him. X’s hatred toward Ms. Ako was on the verge of exploding because of the trouble she caused not only to her family but also to her neighbors.

At first, X intended to kill only Ms. Ako and die himself. However, he felt pity for his remaining eldest son and daughter’s family to live as “the murderer’s family,” and decided to take them with him. However, he did not intend to kill only his wife, as he wanted her to see that they had been together for many years and that he had “cleaned up the mess”. Therefore, the crime was committed on the morning of the day of the incident, after he had dropped his wife off at the train station for a day trip.

At the trial, the prosecutors sought the death penalty for X. However, the sentence handed down in January 2009 was life imprisonment because “he was in an extreme mental condition due to years of harassment by his mother, and there was no possibility that he would commit the crime again. This sentence was extremely unusual for a case in which more than five people had been killed since 1990 and the death penalty was sought, and the case divided opinion. The dispute went all the way to the Supreme Court, but in December 2012, X was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Since the birth of his eldest daughter, Biko, in early February, just prior to the incident, X had been having dinner at Biko’s home with her grandchildren every day. The day before the incident, Mr. and Mrs. X and Biko’s family of six were sitting around the dinner table. What was X thinking during the family reunion?

The victims, who had their futures cut off without their say-so because of “pity,” will never know the extent of their regret…