Japan executes cannibal, who Killed and ate 4 Children
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Japan executes cannibal, who Killed and ate 4 Children*
By Miwa Suzuki in Tokyo
June 17, 2008 11:41am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
JAPAN executed three people today including notorious serial killer
Tsutomu Miyazaki, a fetishist convicted of murdering four little girls
and eating their bodies.
Miyazaki, 45, was nicknamed the "killer nerd" for his obsession with
sexual cartoons and pornography. But defence lawyers contended he was
mentally ill and could not be held fully responsible for his actions.
Miyazaki was arrested in July 1989 while trying to take naked pictures
of a girl outdoors and the details that emerged from his case stunned Japan.
He confessed to having killed four girls, aged between four and seven,
in Tokyo and its suburbs and eating their remains.
Miyazaki mutilated the bodies of the victims, slept next to the corpses
and drank their blood.
He sent letters to the media under a woman's name claiming
responsibility for the crimes and sent a box containing the remains of a
slaughtered girl to her family.
"The atrocious murder of four girls to satisfy his sexual desire leaves
no room for leniency," Chief Justice Tokiyasu Fujita said in January
2006 when he upheld the death sentence.
"The crime is cold-blooded and cruel," he said.
When police arrested Miyazaki, they found about 6000 videotapes, many of
which contained horrific footage, at his home in Saitama prefecture,
near Tokyo.
During the nearly two-decade judicial process, Miyazaki never uttered a
word of remorse to the victims and their families. He cryptically said
that a "rat man" - a cartoonish image which he drew - committed the crimes.
He also distanced himself from his family. When his father, unable to
come to terms with what his son did, jumped into a river to his death in
1994, Miyazaki wrote to a publisher: "I feel refreshed."
But court-appointed psychiatrists agreed with defence lawyers that
Miyazaki was mentally ill.
One finding was that Miyazaki suffered from a multiple personality
disorder, while a second said he was schizophrenic.
Hirokazu Hasegawa, a clinical psychologist who saw Miyazaki in 2006,
said the killer believed his crimes would resurrect his grandfather, who
died three months before the grandson committed his first crime in 1988.
"What he told me lastly was 'Please tell the world that I'm a gentle
man'," Dr Hasegawa said at the time.
The other two inmates who were executed today were both convicted
murders, Shinji Mutsuda and Yoshio Yamasaki, a justice ministry
statement said.