The Setagaya Family Murder: “I didn’t have any money, so I went into an abandoned house.

Breaking and entering in search of money

Mikio Miyazawa (then 44) and four other members of his family were murdered in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, late at night on December 30, 2000, in the Setagaya Family Murder Case. The men who broke into the house where the murders took place to steal money and goods were arrested.

On May 14, the Metropolitan Police Department announced the arrest of Luong Van Hai, 32, of no fixed address, and Nguyen Main Hung, 28, of Chofu City, Tokyo, both Vietnamese construction workers, on charges of breaking into the residence and attempted theft.

In March, when police officers questioned Luong in Nerima Ward, they discovered that his status of residence had expired, and he was arrested on suspicion of violating the Immigration Control Act (illegal residency). During the interrogation, the suspect hinted that he and Nguyen had entered the crime scene together. Nguyen was arrested in Chofu City in April on suspicion of violating the Immigration Control Act.

The two suspects were suspected of “breaking into the house where the murder took place in Kamisoshigaya, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, between mid-September ’23 and mid-December ’25, with the intent to steal money and goods. The two suspects admitted that they broke into the vacant house because their income was unstable and they had no money, and that they broke into the house to make a little extra money to support themselves. It seems that they did not know that this was the scene of the “Setagaya Family Murder Case.

On the morning of December 13 last year, a police officer on patrol found a windowpane by the first floor entrance broken. There were two kinds of footprints in the room, and the front door, which was supposed to be locked, was open. The front door, which was supposed to be locked, was open. The police were investigating on the grounds that someone had broken into the house.

The crime scene in Kamisoshigaya, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, is now located in Soshigaya Park. Immediately after the incident, the police stationed police officers around the clock to preserve evidence, but in February of 2008, they pulled back security because they had finished preserving the evidence. Originally, it was scheduled to be demolished in January of the same year. However, at the bereaved family’s request, an agreement was concluded with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which owns the land, to postpone the building’s demolition, and this has been the case up to the present.

There have been incidents going on.

Since the building was no longer guarded, there have been several incidents.’ In November ’20, a fence surrounding the building was found to have graffiti on it, including drawings and signs resembling faces, and in May of the following year, a high school boy was sent to prosecution on charges of destruction of property. In October 2011, another group of nearly 10 high school students climbed over the fence and entered the premises, and were sent to prosecution on charges of violation of the Misdemeanor Law. The high school students said they were just testing their courage and thought it was a haunted place. They said they did not know about the incident.

The charge against Luong and the others is “trespassing at a residence,” a term that may be unfamiliar to you. Is it different from “trespassing” or “breaking and entering,” which we often see in news reports? Koichiro Matsui, an attorney at ATOM Law Office, explained.

The term “trespassing” is not a legal crime, but a general term for the crime of trespassing under the first sentence of Article 130 of the Penal Code. The term ‘trespassing’ is sometimes used in the media for convenience.

The first sentence of Article 130 of the Penal Code provides, “A person who, without just cause, trespasses into a person’s dwelling, or into a residence, building, or vessel guarded by a person (omitted) shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than three years or a fine of not more than 100,000 yen. In the same article, the crime is divided into “breaking and entering”, “breaking and entering”, “breaking and entering”, and “breaking and entering”, depending on the nature of the building.

The term “residence” refers to a residential building that is not used on a daily basis, such as a vacant house. The Setagaya site in this case is a vacant house that no one has lived in for a long time, so it is a “mansion.

Then, why wasn’t the break-in by a group of high school students in 2011, when they were “testing their mettle,” considered a “breaking and entering” of a residence?

In the ’23 case, the investigation was initially underway on suspicion of “breaking and entering of buildings and violation of the Misdemeanor Law,” but in the end, the case was treated as breaking and entering of a restricted site (Article 1, Item 32 of the Misdemeanor Law). This was the result of taking various circumstances into consideration, such as the fact that the intrusion was not into the building itself but into the premises, and the fact that the victims were all minors and required protective custody.

Incidentally, breaking into abandoned buildings that are famous as haunted places “can be charged as trespassing if the building is under someone’s de facto control, such as fences and locks,” the report said.

The gap in people’s perception of the building at the site, which continues to exist due to the wishes of the bereaved family, one cannot help but feel the length of time that has passed since the incident. We can only hope that the case will be resolved as soon as possible.