Obscure Occurrences : The Murder Mystery of The Miyazawa family

 30 December 2000 was initially just another ordinary day for the Miyazawa family who lived in a creepy abandoned neighbourhood in Setagaya, Tokyo. Originally a welcoming neighbourhood with multiple young families, many of its residents decided to leave after the skate park in the area started expanding as the skaters were too noisy and troublesome. Thus, only four households in the neighbourhood were occupied.

 At around 11:30 pm on 30 December 2000, a mysterious man reached the house of the Miyazawa family to disrupt their peaceful life. At the same time, Mikio, the patriarch of the family, was on the computer finishing his paperwork while his wife Yasuko, their eight-year-old daughter Niina and their six-year-old son Rei were fast asleep. The house remained quiet with the exception of the occasional creaks that were caused by the cold night. A few minutes later, the calmness of the house was disturbed by a chilling crime and it would be felt across all corners of the country of Japan.

Portrait of The Miyazawa Family A.K.A The Setagaya Family

The Brutal Killing

 As Reii was sound asleep in his bedroom on the second floor, the window of the bathroom next to him cracked open. Through the open window, a mysterious man crept into the house and he walked into the young boy’s bedroom stealthily. Without giving it a second thought, the mysterious intruder attacked the boy and strangled him to death with his bare hands. As Reii tried to fight back in a last-ditch attempt to save his life, he unintentionally pushed the objects in the room causing a commotion. Alarmed by the abnormal sounds coming from his son’s room, Mikio got up from his computer table and headed to his son’s room to investigate.

 While he turned around the corner to go upstairs, Mikio was ambushed by the mysterious man. The intruder stabbed him multiple times before he could react and this gave him an upper hand in the struggle that followed. With the profuse blood loss weakening Mikio, the intruder started stabbing him continuously until a final stab to his head killed him. After killing him, the mysterious intruder walked around the house pursuing the other family members.

 Finding them asleep in Niina’s room on the third floor, he started attacking them while they were still asleep. With the killer stabbing them left and right, Yasuko started fighting back and it injured the intruder. She grabbed her daughter and tried running down the stairs but with blood pouring out of the stab wounds on her body, mainly her face and neck, she quickly lost energy and crumbled. The intruder caught up with Yasuko and Niina and started ferociously stabbing them. The intruder did not stop stabbing them even after they died. Thus, within a span of 10 minutes, the mysterious intruder killed the entire family.

The Murderer makes himself Home

 After killing the family, instead of leaving the house, the killer made himself at home. After bandaging his wounds, the killer went to the kitchen and had some melon, drank some barley tea, and ate a few cups of ice cream. While still eating his ice cream, he walked around around the house tossing random wrappers in the random bins of the house. He went down to Mikio’s computer table, comfortably sat on his chair and logged into the family’s computer probably with ice cream still in his mouth. At 1:18 am, the mysterious man browsed the internet with the family’s computer and tried booking tickets for a theatre show. He then gathered all the family’s documents that carried information and threw them in the family’s bathtub with various other items from the house.

 The mysterious man then used the toilet, threw an ice cream cup, Mikio's wallet, and his credit cards into it and left the bathroom without even flushing it. Tired from all the things he had done until then, the mystery killer took a nap on the couch in the living room. After waking up the next day, he used the family’s computer one more time, ripped apart its power cable and left the house. The only thing the suspect took from the house was an old sweatshirt. The next morning, Mikio’s mother was welcomed with a brutal crime scene when she arrived at the family’s home to check in on them. Later, the police were called.

Initial Investigation

 Before leaving, the mysterious intruder left behind a few of his items in the house. The mystery murderer had changed his clothes and he left his blood-stained clothes back in the house. In fact, it was neatly folded as if he wanted the police to find them. This included a pair of sneakers in Korean sizing, a down jacket, a hat, a handkerchief, a hip bag, winter gloves, and a scarf.

 Investigators, with the help of his outfit, confirmed that he was 5’ 7’’. With the DNA sample he left behind, the investigators were able to figure out his genetic makeup. It was determined that he was half southern European and half East Asian. Also, it was discovered that the murderous intruder Type A blood and he was between the ages of 18 and 35 at the time of the crime. The cologne he was wearing was determined to be Drakkar Noir by Guy Laroche which was a popular brand among skateboarders. With the sheer amount of evidence he left behind, you would have thought that the cops would have caught the killer quite easily. But, that is the exact opposite of what really happened. In a country where almost 96% of homicide cases are solved, the identity of this mysterious murderer remains unknown.

Mystery

 The hip bag the killer left behind had traces of sand in it. Upon analysis, it was discovered that the sand came from the Edwards Air Force Base in California. So the killer belonged to the Army? The answer is no. While his DNA and fingerprints were scanned, they showed no matches. If the killer had been in the Army, it would have been flagged up on these tests. Also, the fingerprints of foreign nationals who enter Japan had always been collected and this rule out the possibility of him being a traveller. Thus, the answer to how a foreigner entered an American air force base and what he did there is a mystery.

 Six hours after the discovery, the police got to know that a mysterious man was treated for a deep cut he had on his hand at Tobu Nikko station which was 75 miles away from the crime scene. The cut was so deep that his bone was clearly visible. After treatment, the man left without even revealing his name.

 Since Mikio often got into arguments with the skateboarders of the neighbourhood and the brand of the cologne the murderer used was popular among skateboarders, the police initially suspected it was one of the local skateboarders but checking their fingerprints and DNA samples proved them wrong.

 Since the crime, over 250,000 investigators have been involved in the crime and over 12,000 pieces of evidence had been secured. Over 5 million people have had their fingerprints checked and over 1.3 million people have had their DNA samples tested but none of them matched the ones of the killer. It appears as if the mysterious murderer vanished after killing the family. Thus, even as of 2022, the case is still active and the identity of the killer remains a mystery.