May 29, 2024 • 28 mins
In this chilling true crime podcast, we delve into the infamous Setagaya Family Murders, a still unsolved case that has baffled investigators for years. Join me as I unravel the mystery of the elusive "Goldilocks Murderer" who broke into the home of the Miyazawa family on December 30, 2000, and brutally murdered four of its members. Despite countless leads and extensive investigation, the killer remains at large, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and unfulfilled justice. Discover the shocking details of this heinous crime and the ongoing quest to bring closure to the victims and their surviving loved ones. Listen now to uncover the disturbing truth behind the Setagaya Family Murders. The Setagaya Family Murders #truecrime #unsolved #unsolvedmurders #oddmysteriesstories Don't forget to review, download, and subscribe!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you're like most people, you probably believe any killer who leaves evidence lying around is sure to get caught and swiftly brought to justice.
(00:08):
Perhaps you even comfort yourself with that thought when tragedy strikes.
Yet on December 30, 2000, a bold and ruthless killer struck down a young family in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward,
taunting police with a stunning amount of evidence left at the scene evidence that led nowhere at all.
After the murders, the killer seemed to slip into the night as if he'd never existed.
(00:32):
You're going to be shocked when you find out how much the police know and how much they don't know.
Devoted detectives have never given up on the case, but the Goldilocks murderer remains at large to this day.
Join me for a ride through strange and mysterious, here at Odd Mysteries Stories.
44 year old Mikio Miyazawa and his 41 year old wife, Yasuko, raised their children, Mina and Rei, in a lovely suburban home that backed up to Sochigaya Park.
(01:04):
They lived next door to Haruko, who is Yasuko's mother.
They were the last holdouts in the neighborhood, a family living on an otherwise empty street where all the other homes had been demolished.
The city had planned to buy back the neighborhood land so they could expand the park.
In spite of the fact that they were the last family standing, the Miyazawa's did sell the home shortly before the murders had collected their compensation and were preparing to move.
(01:32):
Mikio worked for an international marketing company, Yasuko was a tutor.
Mina, age 8, was a lively and bright ballet student full of energy and drive.
Rei, age 6, was mentally disabled but well loved by his parents, sister and grandparents.
Mikio and Yasuko had a strong and uneventful marriage.
(01:53):
Mikio's job was demanding but mundane.
The family finances were clean and meticulously documented.
Their life wasn't perfect.
Tensions with the mother-in-law next door led Mikio to install soundproofing between the two homes.
But the imperfections in their lives were normal imperfections.
This was a loving family who lived humbly and kept to themselves.
(02:17):
Most of us believe if we live good, orderly lives and never get into any trouble we will be safe.
This case shatters that belief.
The day of the murder was a normal day for this normal family.
The Miyazawa spent the day shopping, then returned home, had dinner and watched some television together.
At 10 p.m. that night Mikio opened a password protected work document on the family computer.
(02:44):
Yasuko, Nina and Rei had already gone to bed.
There were no scandals surrounding this family, no secrets, no hidden criminal activity that anyone has ever heard of or suggested.
They were a quiet family, people who did not go looking for trouble but found it anyway.
The case is officially logged as a robbery homicide.
(03:04):
But you'll have reason to question this theory once you've heard all of the evidence.
Over 250,000 investigators have worked on this case and nobody has been able to solve it.
The superintendent general visited the scene ordering a task force to do whatever it took to solve the case.
Chief Takeshi Toshida, now retired, led the task force.
(03:27):
Believing the killer was a foreigner, Tokyo police checked every hotel, hoping for personal details on check informs.
They investigated every individual who had close ties to the family only to come up empty.
Toshida continues to work on the case.
He returns to the scene of the crime again and again, hoping some new detail or lead will present itself.
(03:50):
No credible suspect or person of interest has ever been named.
Everyone who touches the case seems to remain haunted by it ever after.
Many of the detectives and officers involved have maintained close ties with the surviving family.
The public has supplied over 16,000 tip-offs and Tokyo MPD has offered a reward of more than 20 million yen or 150,000 US dollars, the largest reward in Japanese history.
(04:18):
Nevertheless, no suspect or person of interest has ever been named.
The modest Miyazawa home sits, blocked off by orange fencing, a crime scene that's been preserved for all these years.
MPD's determination to solve the case remains both unwavering and as of yet fruitless.
(04:41):
At 10 a.m. on December 31, Yosuko's mother, Haruko, rang by calling the Miyazawa family's phone.
Only to hear a busy signal.
The phone had been disconnected.
Haruko walked next door and knocked.
When she opened the door, she found her son-in-law slumped at the bottom of the staircase near the front door, the victim of multiple stab wounds.
(05:03):
Haruko can't remember whether she used her spare key or whether the door was already open.
Police believe Ray died first.
The killer strangled the child in his bed.
The family may have put up a fight. There were signs of struggle.
The struggle had apparently been so intense that police had caused a question how the killer had ever managed to control the family.
(05:27):
The killer brought a sashimi knife to the house, but he stabbed Mikio so hard that his knife broke.
He then retrieved a kitchen knife to continue his bloody work.
At some point during the struggle, he was injured.
Somehow, either he or a member of the family managed to slice his hand hard enough to damage the black gloves he was wearing.
(05:48):
You're not going to believe the mountains of evidence the killer left at the scene of this crime.
The killer left his fingerprints all over the scene of the crime and apparently made no effort to wipe them away.
Tokyo MPD has run these fingerprints both through domestic databases and through inter-poll databases.
No match has ever been found.
(06:10):
He made himself at home consuming four ice creams from the family freezer and consuming several barley tea.
He used the family computer to browse the internet and may have even taken a nap on the family sofa.
He even used the facilities.
Because he did not flush the toilet, police know exactly what he had for lunch, a healthy home-cooked meal.
(06:32):
At some point, the killer ransacked the house dumping belongings, bills and paperwork into the bathtub and submerging them in water.
Investigative timelines say he arrived sometime around 11 p.m. and left sometime around dawn, which means the killer wandered around the house for hours, making himself at home while the bodies of his victims cooled beside him.
(06:55):
Do you think this indicates a person who was already acquainted with death and comfortable with it?
Or was the killer merely unhinged?
At some point, the killer decided to change his clothes, swapping his outfit for some of Mikio's clothes.
He left his clothes at the scene of the crime, a pair of dark pants, a jacket, a long-sleeved baseball shirt, a cheap plaid scarf, a gray crusher bucket hat, black gloves, sports shoes and a fanny pack.
(07:22):
The clothes were soaked in Dacquon noir cologne.
There were three kinds of powdered fluorescent dyes on the clothes.
Police even found traces of bird droppings, Japanese zelkova tree leaves and willow leaves on the clothes.
The shoes were size 11, a size not sold in Japan.
Only four shops in Tokyo sold the shirt and they were not popular.
(07:46):
Only 130 of them were ever made, but Tokyo MPD has only managed to put a few of the clothes in the closet.
Tokyo MPD has only managed to track down 12 owners.
The killer left two black handkerchiefs at the scene.
One had a hole in the middle wrapped around a kitchen knife.
The other was used possibly as a mask.
(08:08):
The fanny pack held a few grains of sand originating somewhere in the southwestern United States.
It's possible the killer was in the States at some point, but the sand could also have come from a product the killer was carrying.
The fanny pack also contained microscopic glass beads used in printing supplies.
One chilling piece of evidence was found near the house rather than inside it was a two-foot-tall Buddhist statue.
(08:34):
A Jizo bodhisattva considered to be a guardian of dead children.
Perhaps the most incredible fact about this case is that the killer left his DNA all over the scene of the crime.
He dropped his bloody glove, opened the family's first aid kit, and treated the cut.
He used some of Yasuko's sanitary products to staunch the flow of the blood.
(08:56):
The cut might well have been deep.
Police know the killer's blood type is A and they believe he is right-handed.
They've pegged the killer's potential age at the time of the crime at ages 15 to 35.
His waist size is between 27 and 1 1 half inches and 29 and 1 1 half inches.
(09:18):
He is 5 foot 5 inches to 5 foot 6 inches tall.
DNA suggests he may have both Asian and European bloodlines and that he probably was not Japanese.
The killer's DNA has never been matched to any other crime or crime scene.
Why was the killer comfortable leaving so much evidence behind?
(09:39):
Was he young and careless?
Did they want to get caught?
Or did he deliberately leave a disturbing array of evidence behind in the hopes of concealing his true motives?
I mean, what the heck kind of killer takes a poop in the toilet during a crime and then doesn't even bother to flush?
How creepy is that?
We know that the killer probably climbed a tree in the yard, removed the screen on the second floor bathroom window, and headed inside.
(10:06):
The bathroom would have been lit, which should have dissuaded most casual robbers.
Police suspect the killer murdered Ray first, in part because the boy's bedroom was adjacent to the bathroom.
The killer might have left the same way, or he might have walked out the front door.
Unfortunately, evidence that definitively explains the entry and exit methods is somewhat scant.
(10:29):
Police never found blood near the door or the window, and they would have expected to find blood in either or both places had either method been used.
Did the killer suddenly get conscientious about the evidence on his way out the door?
If so, why did he suddenly grow careful when he'd been so careless in the previous hours?
(10:50):
Some of the evidence could link the killer to a member of a military, though it's unclear what country the killer might have come from.
There's the fact that the killer used some of Yasuko's sanitary products to tend to their knife wound.
It's interesting to note that using tampons to staunch blood flow is a technique that a member of the military, or someone who is closely associated with a member of the military, might have known and used.
(11:16):
There's the sand which traces back to Southern California.
It could have come from Edwards Air Force Base.
There is traffic and travel between Edwards and Yokota Air Force Base.
Yokota Air Force Base is roughly 26 miles away from the crime scene.
Could the killer have been a member of the American military or the unhinged teenage son of a member of the military?
(11:41):
The connections are tenuous, yet tantalizing.
A dark street in the dead of winter makes it difficult to produce eyewitnesses.
Haruko said she heard a few thumps in the night, but assumed the family was simply moving about the house.
The family went through intense pain throughout their ordeal, but neither Haruko nor anyone else heard screams or shouts of any kind.
(12:05):
It's possible that the soundproofing that her son-in-law installed prevented her from hearing the murder in progress.
No other eyewitnesses have ever come forward.
A few passing stories circulate on Reddit and various podcasts, but have not been backed up by any major news outlet in either Japan or America.
All of these were covered by the Faceless Podcast, which I'll link below.
(12:28):
For example, there are stories of a taxi driver who picked up three men, one of them wounded near the scene of the crime.
Another brief story suggests a man with a hand wound who had been cut to the bone showed up at a nearby medical facility only to disappear again when told he needed to go to a local hospital.
Another story tells of a stranger with a hand wound who appeared at Teibu-Nik station, three hours north of Soshigaya Park by train.
(12:55):
Supposedly, the stranger got off the train and slipped into the mountains of Nikko National Park, a place where many hikers disappeared.
These anecdotes are compelling and certainly a soldier or contract killer could expect to survive in the lonely mountains even in winter.
Do you think there is any merit to these stories?
Would such a move have represented a brilliant plan to leave the area or an escape plan gone entirely awry?
(13:23):
Unfortunately, suggestions that these witnesses exist or that these incidents happened at all remain unverified by news sources for the time being.
Yet, if absolutely none of these incidents took place, we are instead led to believe that nobody saw the killer either before or after the murder and that the wounded killer never sought medical attention for their hand other than their own jury-rigged first-aid job when the Mayazawa home.
(13:51):
If the killer was attempting to hide their motives, they were certainly successful.
One of the biggest challenges of the Mayazawa murder case is the fact that we have no idea why the killer did what he did.
Several theories have emerged over the years.
Each theory has serious flaws that only serve to make this case all the more baffling.
(14:13):
I really suspect that you'll have trouble choosing a theory to support when you hear why none of the theories have ever been proven.
The official theory is that the Mayazawa murder was a robbery gone horribly wrong and that the killer was after cash.
Perhaps the killer was hoping to find and take the compensation money that the family had received for the sale of their home.
(14:37):
Perhaps the killer was a drug addict who saw a soft target and an opportunity.
After all, the street was deserted, the night was quiet and cold, and most of the household was asleep when the killer struck.
Yet there are several issues with the robbery theory.
The killer left over 250,000 yen, about 2,000 US dollars at the scene of the crime.
(15:00):
The money wasn't hidden.
Given the killer ransacked the house, he probably found the cash but chose to walk out without it.
Perhaps the killer looking for something specific when he ransacked the home or was he merely entertaining himself?
Did he find what he was looking for?
Why destroy documents at all?
Second, the middle class Mayazawa home was modest and located closer to more well-to-do homes,
(15:28):
which certainly would have offered more lucrative targets if not easier ones.
The fact that the killer stuck around rather than taking off with cash and valuables also undermines the robbery theory.
Drug addicts, especially, tend to want to spend stolen money quickly because they're after a drug fix.
And if the killer was an addict, he was not an alcoholic.
(15:49):
There was beer in the fridge, which he bypassed in favor of bottled tea.
There you have the robbery theory.
There are more theories.
So Shigaya Park included a skateboard park and skaters from all over Tokyo would come to use the park, especially at night.
They favored the park in part because there were few homeowners to disturb.
(16:11):
Nevertheless, Mikio made a noise complaint against the skaters, apparently both speaking to the skaters in person and filing an official complaint with the city.
Tokyo M.P.D. believed the clothing found at the scene to be similar to something a skater might wear and spent a lot of time pursuing the idea that
a disgruntled skater had been angry enough at the noise complaint to brutally murder an entire family over it.
(16:37):
This complaint was, in fact, the only evidence of any kind of disagreement or argument Mikio had experienced with anyone.
Some of the fluorescent material on the clothes could have come from highlighters indicating a younger individual, perhaps a student.
Some of the residue found in the fanny pack could have come from the type of tape that is used to wrap skateboards.
(16:59):
Nevertheless, police interviewed as many skaters as possible and were unable to match the fingerprints found at the scene with the fingerprints of any skater known to frequent the park.
And could a noise complaint really have inspired someone to commit a brutal murder?
Was the killer someone who knew the family? Did they have some other manner of grudge?
(17:23):
Police talked to everyone who knew the family. The family didn't seem to have any enemies.
Mikio's marketing work mostly served run-of-the-mill companies selling routine goods and services.
His work didn't bring him into contact with any sensitive or lucrative secrets.
The police found no reason to suspect Yasuko students or the families of those students.
(17:46):
As far as anyone could tell, the Miyazas got along well with their extended family and with one another.
They did not even seem to struggle very much with Ray's developmental disability.
If someone did have a grudge against them, they hid that fact incredibly well.
In fact, the family had so few enemies that some have even suggested the murder was a case of mistaken identity.
(18:08):
Perhaps the killer had the wrong house.
Yet that seems unlikely too, as Haruko's house and the Miyazawa house were the only homes left on the street.
The others had been demolished for the Sochigaya Park expansion.
If the killers knew the Miyazas at all, they likely knew exactly who and where they were.
(18:29):
Crime writer Fumiya Ichihashi believed the killer was a former South Korean Army soldier turned killer for hire.
Ichihashi latched onto the South Korean shoe connection, the possible Korean DNA,
and the slight suggestion of military ties to come up with the theory.
Unfortunately, there were serious flaws with this theory from the start.
(18:53):
First, South Korea is also a member of Interpol.
Every South Korean must register their fingerprints at the local government office within a month of their 17th birthday,
and members of the military would certainly have been fingerprinted.
If the Korean killer for hire theory were true, surely the search would have turned up a match.
Second, who would hire an expensive contract killer to murder a normal middle-class family
(19:20):
with no enemies and no ties to any sensitive issue or data whatsoever?
The Miyazas had already sold their home to the city, and the murder itself stopped the park expansion.
Nobody benefited from it. The motive probably wasn't real estate related.
As far as we know, the Miyazas owed no major debts and had no ties whatsoever to any shady organization.
(19:45):
And yet, Japanese culture itself could conceal such ties.
Police might have been reluctant to dishonor Mikiomizawa's memory by revealing details that might hint at a dark past
or at a job that was a little more intense than creating logos and putting together marketing materials.
If the police do know of such ties, they are keeping them a closely guarded secret.
(20:09):
It's even possible that Mikiomizawa, or a member of his family, witnessed something we don't know about,
prompting someone to try and protect secrets of his own.
Still, the hired hitman theory nevertheless has a third flaw.
Contract killers are not generally known to leave a lot of evidence at the scene,
nor are they known to make themselves at home for hours after committing a murder.
(20:32):
What killer for hire would leave their DNA and fingerprints at the scene of the crime?
Why the brutality?
Why bring a thin, flexible sashimi knife to use as the primary murder weapon, a $20 knife suitable for cutting fish, but not for stabbing human?
Tokyo M.P.D. does not believe this theory has much credibility.
(20:55):
And yet, how could anyone other than a trained killer for hire manage to disappear without a trace after committing such a bloody, horrific murder?
Do you think there is more to the family story than meets the eye?
Is it possible the wealth of evidence was left to conceal the true nature of the crime,
precisely for the purposes of debunking any theories about hired hitmen?
(21:20):
Could the killer have arrived with a more serious weapon, like a gun, that left the scene with him?
Such a scenario could help explain how the family was ultimately kept under control as the murders commenced.
But there is no evidence a gun was ever involved.
With the exception of little Ray, all the members of the family were stabbed repeatedly.
(21:44):
It's possible the murderer killed and tortured this gentle young family for fun.
The brutality of the murders, the senseless nature of the killer's actions in the house,
and the utter lack of apparent motive could point to a disturbed young person who killed the Miyazawa's because they could.
And yet, if that is the case, why has the murderer never killed again?
(22:05):
This level of violence and the torturing of victims is often associated with serial murderers.
Serial murderers usually escalate and continue to kill.
The killer's prints have never shown up at another crime scene that we know of, in Japan or in any other country.
Is it possible the killer completed their grisly work and simply stopped killing after that?
(22:27):
Or did the killer take his own life or die shortly after due to unrelated causes,
cutting a gruesome serial career short before it ever really got off the ground?
One limitation of the investigation are the laws governing the use of DNA in criminal investigation.
Japanese law prevents the police from cross-referencing DNA against ancestry sites,
(22:50):
a move which might at least lead them to members of the killer's family.
The law prevents the Japanese police from releasing DNA-generated physical profiles to the public.
Tsuchita notes this as a major limitation, telling one news outlet,
quote, if we can't generate a facial image based on the DNA, it might as well be as if we had no DNA at all.
(23:14):
The law also prevents Japanese police from talking to foreign experts about how they might use DNA.
Japanese DNA technology has thus lagged behind the rest of the world.
No Japanese law limits DNA collection, and the Japanese have 1.3 million samples of their citizens on file.
Nevertheless, they have been unable to match the DNA found at the scene to any other DNA on file.
(23:39):
The killer may truly be a foreigner, one who left Japan shortly after the Setagaya murders.
In 1999, visitors to Soshigaya Park began discovering murdered and tortured cats in and around the park.
13 cats died during the incident.
Someone had used chemicals to murder the cats.
(24:01):
While locals reported the incidents to the police, the cat murders remained unaddressed.
The cat murders stopped after the murder of the Miyazawa family.
Was the killer practicing?
Working himself up to murder people instead of animals.
After the Miyazawa family murder, police at the time suspected a connection existed between the dead cats and the dead family.
(24:24):
16 more cats were attacked in the park in 2009, leading the local police to post-warning sign.
The perpetrator murdered the cats with boiling water, hot oil, or sulfuric acid, a method very similar to the original method used in 1999.
Four of the 2009 cat victims lived.
The rest succumbed to the severity of their wounds and died.
(24:48):
The killer might have used a syringe or a water pistol to kill the cats from behind.
Did Goldilocks return to amuse himself with a series of cat murders ten years after the family murders,
conducting a grim, solitary anniversary visit before disappearing into the ether once more?
Or was there a new cat killer or someone who simply copied the old animal assaults before moving on?
(25:14):
There are no more records of cat murders in Soshigaya Park, but these events certainly serve as a rather disturbing bit of mythical legend in the broader Setagaya story.
Every year in December, the police return to Seijo Gakuen-May train station to hand out flyers, hoping this year will be the year someone comes forward with new information.
(25:36):
Every year, police officers attend the family's memorial service, paying their respects and renewing their promise to solve this case.
Many of the officers involved continue to urge Japanese lawmakers to adjust DNA laws in the hopes of shaking out a lead.
Mountains of evidence and no conclusive theories or suspects.
(25:57):
What do you think of this case?
Did a crazed sadist choose a mundane family to enact a murder fantasy upon before disappearing into the night?
Was it an incompetent robber who was too mentally unhinged to gather all the goods he came for?
Could there really be a Korean hitman at large or some connection to an American soldier?
(26:18):
Do you have a new theory nobody has considered yet? Share your theories and insights in the comments below.
Your perspective could help shed new light on this grim, unsolved mystery.
I want you to know that listeners like you are the most important people to odd mystery stories.
Thank you so much for listening to this story.
(26:40):
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(27:07):
Again, that email address is, with no spaces, odd mysteries, the number 4, and the letter u at gmail.com.
I will do my very best to answer all messages, so don't hesitate to reach out to me.
In the next episode, I'll share the odd, mysterious story of Pamela Buckley and James Freund, who are also known as the Sumter County Doze.
(27:29):
These two young people were killed and left on the side of a desolate road in South Carolina.
The sad or even strangest part of this story is that it took over four decades to identify who they were.
Their family and friends seem to have had no idea that they had been murdered so many years ago.
Tune in my next podcast to learn some of my theories on how this could have happened.
(27:52):
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If you're like most people, you probably believe any killer who leaves evidence lying around is sure to get caught and swiftly brought to justice.
(00:08):
Perhaps you even comfort yourself with that thought when tragedy strikes.
Yet on December 30, 2000, a bold and ruthless killer struck down a young family in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward,
taunting police with a stunning amount of evidence left at the scene evidence that led nowhere at all.
After the murders, the killer seemed to slip into the night as if he'd never existed.
(00:32):
You're going to be shocked when you find out how much the police know and how much they don't know.
Devoted detectives have never given up on the case, but the Goldilocks murderer remains at large to this day.
Join me for a ride through strange and mysterious, here at Odd Mysteries Stories.
44 year old Mikio Miyazawa and his 41 year old wife, Yasuko, raised their children, Mina and Rei, in a lovely suburban home that backed up to Sochigaya Park.
(01:04):
They lived next door to Haruko, who is Yasuko's mother.
They were the last holdouts in the neighborhood, a family living on an otherwise empty street where all the other homes had been demolished.
The city had planned to buy back the neighborhood land so they could expand the park.
In spite of the fact that they were the last family standing, the Miyazawa's did sell the home shortly before the murders had collected their compensation and were preparing to move.
(01:32):
Mikio worked for an international marketing company, Yasuko was a tutor.
Mina, age 8, was a lively and bright ballet student full of energy and drive.
Rei, age 6, was mentally disabled but well loved by his parents, sister and grandparents.
Mikio and Yasuko had a strong and uneventful marriage.
(01:53):
Mikio's job was demanding but mundane.
The family finances were clean and meticulously documented.
Their life wasn't perfect.
Tensions with the mother-in-law next door led Mikio to install soundproofing between the two homes.
But the imperfections in their lives were normal imperfections.
This was a loving family who lived humbly and kept to themselves.
(02:17):
Most of us believe if we live good, orderly lives and never get into any trouble we will be safe.
This case shatters that belief.
The day of the murder was a normal day for this normal family.
The Miyazawa spent the day shopping, then returned home, had dinner and watched some television together.
At 10 p.m. that night Mikio opened a password protected work document on the family computer.
(02:44):
Yasuko, Nina and Rei had already gone to bed.
There were no scandals surrounding this family, no secrets, no hidden criminal activity that anyone has ever heard of or suggested.
They were a quiet family, people who did not go looking for trouble but found it anyway.
The case is officially logged as a robbery homicide.
(03:04):
But you'll have reason to question this theory once you've heard all of the evidence.
Over 250,000 investigators have worked on this case and nobody has been able to solve it.
The superintendent general visited the scene ordering a task force to do whatever it took to solve the case.
Chief Takeshi Toshida, now retired, led the task force.
(03:27):
Believing the killer was a foreigner, Tokyo police checked every hotel, hoping for personal details on check informs.
They investigated every individual who had close ties to the family only to come up empty.
Toshida continues to work on the case.
He returns to the scene of the crime again and again, hoping some new detail or lead will present itself.
(03:50):
No credible suspect or person of interest has ever been named.
Everyone who touches the case seems to remain haunted by it ever after.
Many of the detectives and officers involved have maintained close ties with the surviving family.
The public has supplied over 16,000 tip-offs and Tokyo MPD has offered a reward of more than 20 million yen or 150,000 US dollars, the largest reward in Japanese history.
(04:18):
Nevertheless, no suspect or person of interest has ever been named.
The modest Miyazawa home sits, blocked off by orange fencing, a crime scene that's been preserved for all these years.
MPD's determination to solve the case remains both unwavering and as of yet fruitless.
(04:41):
At 10 a.m. on December 31, Yosuko's mother, Haruko, rang by calling the Miyazawa family's phone.
Only to hear a busy signal.
The phone had been disconnected.
Haruko walked next door and knocked.
When she opened the door, she found her son-in-law slumped at the bottom of the staircase near the front door, the victim of multiple stab wounds.
(05:03):
Haruko can't remember whether she used her spare key or whether the door was already open.
Police believe Ray died first.
The killer strangled the child in his bed.
The family may have put up a fight. There were signs of struggle.
The struggle had apparently been so intense that police had caused a question how the killer had ever managed to control the family.
(05:27):
The killer brought a sashimi knife to the house, but he stabbed Mikio so hard that his knife broke.
He then retrieved a kitchen knife to continue his bloody work.
At some point during the struggle, he was injured.
Somehow, either he or a member of the family managed to slice his hand hard enough to damage the black gloves he was wearing.
(05:48):
You're not going to believe the mountains of evidence the killer left at the scene of this crime.
The killer left his fingerprints all over the scene of the crime and apparently made no effort to wipe them away.
Tokyo MPD has run these fingerprints both through domestic databases and through inter-poll databases.
No match has ever been found.
(06:10):
He made himself at home consuming four ice creams from the family freezer and consuming several barley tea.
He used the family computer to browse the internet and may have even taken a nap on the family sofa.
He even used the facilities.
Because he did not flush the toilet, police know exactly what he had for lunch, a healthy home-cooked meal.
(06:32):
At some point, the killer ransacked the house dumping belongings, bills and paperwork into the bathtub and submerging them in water.
Investigative timelines say he arrived sometime around 11 p.m. and left sometime around dawn, which means the killer wandered around the house for hours, making himself at home while the bodies of his victims cooled beside him.
(06:55):
Do you think this indicates a person who was already acquainted with death and comfortable with it?
Or was the killer merely unhinged?
At some point, the killer decided to change his clothes, swapping his outfit for some of Mikio's clothes.
He left his clothes at the scene of the crime, a pair of dark pants, a jacket, a long-sleeved baseball shirt, a cheap plaid scarf, a gray crusher bucket hat, black gloves, sports shoes and a fanny pack.
(07:22):
The clothes were soaked in Dacquon noir cologne.
There were three kinds of powdered fluorescent dyes on the clothes.
Police even found traces of bird droppings, Japanese zelkova tree leaves and willow leaves on the clothes.
The shoes were size 11, a size not sold in Japan.
Only four shops in Tokyo sold the shirt and they were not popular.
(07:46):
Only 130 of them were ever made, but Tokyo MPD has only managed to put a few of the clothes in the closet.
Tokyo MPD has only managed to track down 12 owners.
The killer left two black handkerchiefs at the scene.
One had a hole in the middle wrapped around a kitchen knife.
The other was used possibly as a mask.
(08:08):
The fanny pack held a few grains of sand originating somewhere in the southwestern United States.
It's possible the killer was in the States at some point, but the sand could also have come from a product the killer was carrying.
The fanny pack also contained microscopic glass beads used in printing supplies.
One chilling piece of evidence was found near the house rather than inside it was a two-foot-tall Buddhist statue.
(08:34):
A Jizo bodhisattva considered to be a guardian of dead children.
Perhaps the most incredible fact about this case is that the killer left his DNA all over the scene of the crime.
He dropped his bloody glove, opened the family's first aid kit, and treated the cut.
He used some of Yasuko's sanitary products to staunch the flow of the blood.
(08:56):
The cut might well have been deep.
Police know the killer's blood type is A and they believe he is right-handed.
They've pegged the killer's potential age at the time of the crime at ages 15 to 35.
His waist size is between 27 and 1 1 half inches and 29 and 1 1 half inches.
(09:18):
He is 5 foot 5 inches to 5 foot 6 inches tall.
DNA suggests he may have both Asian and European bloodlines and that he probably was not Japanese.
The killer's DNA has never been matched to any other crime or crime scene.
Why was the killer comfortable leaving so much evidence behind?
(09:39):
Was he young and careless?
Did they want to get caught?
Or did he deliberately leave a disturbing array of evidence behind in the hopes of concealing his true motives?
I mean, what the heck kind of killer takes a poop in the toilet during a crime and then doesn't even bother to flush?
How creepy is that?
We know that the killer probably climbed a tree in the yard, removed the screen on the second floor bathroom window, and headed inside.
(10:06):
The bathroom would have been lit, which should have dissuaded most casual robbers.
Police suspect the killer murdered Ray first, in part because the boy's bedroom was adjacent to the bathroom.
The killer might have left the same way, or he might have walked out the front door.
Unfortunately, evidence that definitively explains the entry and exit methods is somewhat scant.
(10:29):
Police never found blood near the door or the window, and they would have expected to find blood in either or both places had either method been used.
Did the killer suddenly get conscientious about the evidence on his way out the door?
If so, why did he suddenly grow careful when he'd been so careless in the previous hours?
(10:50):
Some of the evidence could link the killer to a member of a military, though it's unclear what country the killer might have come from.
There's the fact that the killer used some of Yasuko's sanitary products to tend to their knife wound.
It's interesting to note that using tampons to staunch blood flow is a technique that a member of the military, or someone who is closely associated with a member of the military, might have known and used.
(11:16):
There's the sand which traces back to Southern California.
It could have come from Edwards Air Force Base.
There is traffic and travel between Edwards and Yokota Air Force Base.
Yokota Air Force Base is roughly 26 miles away from the crime scene.
Could the killer have been a member of the American military or the unhinged teenage son of a member of the military?
(11:41):
The connections are tenuous, yet tantalizing.
A dark street in the dead of winter makes it difficult to produce eyewitnesses.
Haruko said she heard a few thumps in the night, but assumed the family was simply moving about the house.
The family went through intense pain throughout their ordeal, but neither Haruko nor anyone else heard screams or shouts of any kind.
(12:05):
It's possible that the soundproofing that her son-in-law installed prevented her from hearing the murder in progress.
No other eyewitnesses have ever come forward.
A few passing stories circulate on Reddit and various podcasts, but have not been backed up by any major news outlet in either Japan or America.
All of these were covered by the Faceless Podcast, which I'll link below.
(12:28):
For example, there are stories of a taxi driver who picked up three men, one of them wounded near the scene of the crime.
Another brief story suggests a man with a hand wound who had been cut to the bone showed up at a nearby medical facility only to disappear again when told he needed to go to a local hospital.
Another story tells of a stranger with a hand wound who appeared at Teibu-Nik station, three hours north of Soshigaya Park by train.
(12:55):
Supposedly, the stranger got off the train and slipped into the mountains of Nikko National Park, a place where many hikers disappeared.
These anecdotes are compelling and certainly a soldier or contract killer could expect to survive in the lonely mountains even in winter.
Do you think there is any merit to these stories?
Would such a move have represented a brilliant plan to leave the area or an escape plan gone entirely awry?
(13:23):
Unfortunately, suggestions that these witnesses exist or that these incidents happened at all remain unverified by news sources for the time being.
Yet, if absolutely none of these incidents took place, we are instead led to believe that nobody saw the killer either before or after the murder and that the wounded killer never sought medical attention for their hand other than their own jury-rigged first-aid job when the Mayazawa home.
(13:51):
If the killer was attempting to hide their motives, they were certainly successful.
One of the biggest challenges of the Mayazawa murder case is the fact that we have no idea why the killer did what he did.
Several theories have emerged over the years.
Each theory has serious flaws that only serve to make this case all the more baffling.
(14:13):
I really suspect that you'll have trouble choosing a theory to support when you hear why none of the theories have ever been proven.
The official theory is that the Mayazawa murder was a robbery gone horribly wrong and that the killer was after cash.
Perhaps the killer was hoping to find and take the compensation money that the family had received for the sale of their home.
(14:37):
Perhaps the killer was a drug addict who saw a soft target and an opportunity.
After all, the street was deserted, the night was quiet and cold, and most of the household was asleep when the killer struck.
Yet there are several issues with the robbery theory.
The killer left over 250,000 yen, about 2,000 US dollars at the scene of the crime.
(15:00):
The money wasn't hidden.
Given the killer ransacked the house, he probably found the cash but chose to walk out without it.
Perhaps the killer looking for something specific when he ransacked the home or was he merely entertaining himself?
Did he find what he was looking for?
Why destroy documents at all?
Second, the middle class Mayazawa home was modest and located closer to more well-to-do homes,
(15:28):
which certainly would have offered more lucrative targets if not easier ones.
The fact that the killer stuck around rather than taking off with cash and valuables also undermines the robbery theory.
Drug addicts, especially, tend to want to spend stolen money quickly because they're after a drug fix.
And if the killer was an addict, he was not an alcoholic.
(15:49):
There was beer in the fridge, which he bypassed in favor of bottled tea.
There you have the robbery theory.
There are more theories.
So Shigaya Park included a skateboard park and skaters from all over Tokyo would come to use the park, especially at night.
They favored the park in part because there were few homeowners to disturb.
(16:11):
Nevertheless, Mikio made a noise complaint against the skaters, apparently both speaking to the skaters in person and filing an official complaint with the city.
Tokyo M.P.D. believed the clothing found at the scene to be similar to something a skater might wear and spent a lot of time pursuing the idea that
a disgruntled skater had been angry enough at the noise complaint to brutally murder an entire family over it.
(16:37):
This complaint was, in fact, the only evidence of any kind of disagreement or argument Mikio had experienced with anyone.
Some of the fluorescent material on the clothes could have come from highlighters indicating a younger individual, perhaps a student.
Some of the residue found in the fanny pack could have come from the type of tape that is used to wrap skateboards.
(16:59):
Nevertheless, police interviewed as many skaters as possible and were unable to match the fingerprints found at the scene with the fingerprints of any skater known to frequent the park.
And could a noise complaint really have inspired someone to commit a brutal murder?
Was the killer someone who knew the family? Did they have some other manner of grudge?
(17:23):
Police talked to everyone who knew the family. The family didn't seem to have any enemies.
Mikio's marketing work mostly served run-of-the-mill companies selling routine goods and services.
His work didn't bring him into contact with any sensitive or lucrative secrets.
The police found no reason to suspect Yasuko students or the families of those students.
(17:46):
As far as anyone could tell, the Miyazas got along well with their extended family and with one another.
They did not even seem to struggle very much with Ray's developmental disability.
If someone did have a grudge against them, they hid that fact incredibly well.
In fact, the family had so few enemies that some have even suggested the murder was a case of mistaken identity.
(18:08):
Perhaps the killer had the wrong house.
Yet that seems unlikely too, as Haruko's house and the Miyazawa house were the only homes left on the street.
The others had been demolished for the Sochigaya Park expansion.
If the killers knew the Miyazas at all, they likely knew exactly who and where they were.
(18:29):
Crime writer Fumiya Ichihashi believed the killer was a former South Korean Army soldier turned killer for hire.
Ichihashi latched onto the South Korean shoe connection, the possible Korean DNA,
and the slight suggestion of military ties to come up with the theory.
Unfortunately, there were serious flaws with this theory from the start.
(18:53):
First, South Korea is also a member of Interpol.
Every South Korean must register their fingerprints at the local government office within a month of their 17th birthday,
and members of the military would certainly have been fingerprinted.
If the Korean killer for hire theory were true, surely the search would have turned up a match.
Second, who would hire an expensive contract killer to murder a normal middle-class family
(19:20):
with no enemies and no ties to any sensitive issue or data whatsoever?
The Miyazas had already sold their home to the city, and the murder itself stopped the park expansion.
Nobody benefited from it. The motive probably wasn't real estate related.
As far as we know, the Miyazas owed no major debts and had no ties whatsoever to any shady organization.
(19:45):
And yet, Japanese culture itself could conceal such ties.
Police might have been reluctant to dishonor Mikiomizawa's memory by revealing details that might hint at a dark past
or at a job that was a little more intense than creating logos and putting together marketing materials.
If the police do know of such ties, they are keeping them a closely guarded secret.
(20:09):
It's even possible that Mikiomizawa, or a member of his family, witnessed something we don't know about,
prompting someone to try and protect secrets of his own.
Still, the hired hitman theory nevertheless has a third flaw.
Contract killers are not generally known to leave a lot of evidence at the scene,
nor are they known to make themselves at home for hours after committing a murder.
(20:32):
What killer for hire would leave their DNA and fingerprints at the scene of the crime?
Why the brutality?
Why bring a thin, flexible sashimi knife to use as the primary murder weapon, a $20 knife suitable for cutting fish, but not for stabbing human?
Tokyo M.P.D. does not believe this theory has much credibility.
(20:55):
And yet, how could anyone other than a trained killer for hire manage to disappear without a trace after committing such a bloody, horrific murder?
Do you think there is more to the family story than meets the eye?
Is it possible the wealth of evidence was left to conceal the true nature of the crime,
precisely for the purposes of debunking any theories about hired hitmen?
(21:20):
Could the killer have arrived with a more serious weapon, like a gun, that left the scene with him?
Such a scenario could help explain how the family was ultimately kept under control as the murders commenced.
But there is no evidence a gun was ever involved.
With the exception of little Ray, all the members of the family were stabbed repeatedly.
(21:44):
It's possible the murderer killed and tortured this gentle young family for fun.
The brutality of the murders, the senseless nature of the killer's actions in the house,
and the utter lack of apparent motive could point to a disturbed young person who killed the Miyazawa's because they could.
And yet, if that is the case, why has the murderer never killed again?
(22:05):
This level of violence and the torturing of victims is often associated with serial murderers.
Serial murderers usually escalate and continue to kill.
The killer's prints have never shown up at another crime scene that we know of, in Japan or in any other country.
Is it possible the killer completed their grisly work and simply stopped killing after that?
(22:27):
Or did the killer take his own life or die shortly after due to unrelated causes,
cutting a gruesome serial career short before it ever really got off the ground?
One limitation of the investigation are the laws governing the use of DNA in criminal investigation.
Japanese law prevents the police from cross-referencing DNA against ancestry sites,
(22:50):
a move which might at least lead them to members of the killer's family.
The law prevents the Japanese police from releasing DNA-generated physical profiles to the public.
Tsuchita notes this as a major limitation, telling one news outlet,
quote, if we can't generate a facial image based on the DNA, it might as well be as if we had no DNA at all.
(23:14):
The law also prevents Japanese police from talking to foreign experts about how they might use DNA.
Japanese DNA technology has thus lagged behind the rest of the world.
No Japanese law limits DNA collection, and the Japanese have 1.3 million samples of their citizens on file.
Nevertheless, they have been unable to match the DNA found at the scene to any other DNA on file.
(23:39):
The killer may truly be a foreigner, one who left Japan shortly after the Setagaya murders.
In 1999, visitors to Soshigaya Park began discovering murdered and tortured cats in and around the park.
13 cats died during the incident.
Someone had used chemicals to murder the cats.
(24:01):
While locals reported the incidents to the police, the cat murders remained unaddressed.
The cat murders stopped after the murder of the Miyazawa family.
Was the killer practicing?
Working himself up to murder people instead of animals.
After the Miyazawa family murder, police at the time suspected a connection existed between the dead cats and the dead family.
(24:24):
16 more cats were attacked in the park in 2009, leading the local police to post-warning sign.
The perpetrator murdered the cats with boiling water, hot oil, or sulfuric acid, a method very similar to the original method used in 1999.
Four of the 2009 cat victims lived.
The rest succumbed to the severity of their wounds and died.
(24:48):
The killer might have used a syringe or a water pistol to kill the cats from behind.
Did Goldilocks return to amuse himself with a series of cat murders ten years after the family murders,
conducting a grim, solitary anniversary visit before disappearing into the ether once more?
Or was there a new cat killer or someone who simply copied the old animal assaults before moving on?
(25:14):
There are no more records of cat murders in Soshigaya Park, but these events certainly serve as a rather disturbing bit of mythical legend in the broader Setagaya story.
Every year in December, the police return to Seijo Gakuen-May train station to hand out flyers, hoping this year will be the year someone comes forward with new information.
(25:36):
Every year, police officers attend the family's memorial service, paying their respects and renewing their promise to solve this case.
Many of the officers involved continue to urge Japanese lawmakers to adjust DNA laws in the hopes of shaking out a lead.
Mountains of evidence and no conclusive theories or suspects.
(25:57):
What do you think of this case?
Did a crazed sadist choose a mundane family to enact a murder fantasy upon before disappearing into the night?
Was it an incompetent robber who was too mentally unhinged to gather all the goods he came for?
Could there really be a Korean hitman at large or some connection to an American soldier?
(26:18):
Do you have a new theory nobody has considered yet? Share your theories and insights in the comments below.
Your perspective could help shed new light on this grim, unsolved mystery.
I want you to know that listeners like you are the most important people to odd mystery stories.
Thank you so much for listening to this story.
(26:40):
I hope you would also please consider subscribing to my podcast.
If you know of a story that is unsolved, strange, odd, and of course mysterious, I invite you to share the known details of that story with me.
You can either go to one of my social media accounts like Facebook or Twitter,
or you can simply email me at the following address with no spaces, odd mysteries, the number 4, and the letter u at gmail.com.
(27:07):
Again, that email address is, with no spaces, odd mysteries, the number 4, and the letter u at gmail.com.
I will do my very best to answer all messages, so don't hesitate to reach out to me.
In the next episode, I'll share the odd, mysterious story of Pamela Buckley and James Freund, who are also known as the Sumter County Doze.
(27:29):
These two young people were killed and left on the side of a desolate road in South Carolina.
The sad or even strangest part of this story is that it took over four decades to identify who they were.
Their family and friends seem to have had no idea that they had been murdered so many years ago.
Tune in my next podcast to learn some of my theories on how this could have happened.
(27:52):
I sincerely hope you enjoyed this story.
If you did, please leave me a review, download, and share this story with your friends.
Lastly, if you enjoyed this podcast and want to help it grow, head over to my Patreon page,
buy me a cup of coffee, and donate to the show in exchange for future premium content.
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