Murder of Shiori Ino

Shiori Ino (猪野 詩織, Ino Shiori, 18 May 1978 – 26 October 1999) was a Japanese 21-year-old student who was murdered in Okegawa, Saitama Prefecture on 26 October 1999. Ino was killed by a hitman hired by Kazuhito Komatsu for rejecting him after months of stalking and violent threats against Ino and her family. Ino's murder exposed a significant dereliction of duties of the Saitama Prefecture police force, brought about changes to legal treatment of stalking in Japan, and is considered an example of media manipulation.

Stalking

In January 1999, Shiori Ino, a 21-year old university student, began dating Kazuhito Komatsu (小松 和人, Komatsu Kazuhito), a 26-year-old who operated a series of massage parlors with his brother Takeshi, a firefighter. The two had met at an amusement arcade near Ōmiya Station in Ōmiya Ward, Saitama, and Komatsu claimed to be a 23-year-old entrepreneur who dealt in cars, real estate and precious metals. After four or five dates, Komatsu began presenting Ino with expensive gifts such as Louis Vuitton handbags and Gucci suits in public places, and screamed abuse at her when she refused them. Komatsu also began calling her at home, despite the fact that she had only given him her cell phone number. Around this time, Ino found a credit card featuring Komatsu's real name inside his car. When Ino attempted to break off contact, Komatsu threatened her until she agreed to keep seeing him. On 24 March, Ino confided in a friend that she was afraid for her life. On 30 March, Ino wrote a will, and attempted again to break off the relationship with Komatsu, but relented after he threatened her family, including insinuations about physically harming her younger brother, an elementary school student.

On June 14, Ino met Komatsu at a cafe and unequivocally stated her intention not to see him again. The same day, Komatsu, Takeshi and their friend went to the Ino family home, and threatened both Ino and her mother, presenting them with a series of lies about Ino being liable for fictional embezzlements that Komatsu had committed. They threatened Ino's father when he returned from work, who, unmoved, ordered them out of the house after telling them to take the gifts Komatsu had forced on Ino. The three retreated, specifically stating that they did not want the gifts back. Unbeknownst to them, Ino had made an audio recording of the entire ordeal, which she presented to the Saitama Prefecture police station in Ageo the next day. Despite the outrage of one younger officer, the officers who met Ino told her that she had no case. That day, the Ino family received a call from someone calling himself "Tanaka" demanding the return of the gifts, following a series of about twenty silent calls. This daily barrage of silent calls continued until October 26.

On June 16, Ino again went to the Saitama police with her parents. The police again refused to take action, and suggested that she was at fault for breaking up with a smitten suitor after accepting expensive gifts. They also went to a free legal clinic run by the Chamber of Commerce as per suggestion of the police. After a fifteen-minute consultation, the lawyer dismissed their concerns, stating that, "But she had a lot of things bought for her, right?" The following day, Ino received a call from Komatsu demanding they get back together. She refused, and stated that she had been to the police. Komatsu reacted angrily before hanging up abruptly.

On June 21, Ino sent everything Komatsu had forced on her to his address by courier service. The following day, June 22, Takeshi approached 33-year-old Yoshifumi Kubota, a former manager of one of their massage parlors, with a ¥20 million murder-for-hire scheme at Komatsu's behest. Kubota agreed, and in turn recruited two acquaintances, Akira Kawakami and Yoshitaka Ito. On July 5, Komatsu departed Saitama Prefecture for Naha, Okinawa Prefecture to build an alibi for the planned assassination of Ino.

Over the next four months, Ino's family endured an escalating series of harassments and threats, including hundreds of posters and letters slandering Ino and her father distributed throughout the neighborhood, and to the father's workplace. The family repeatedly went to the police armed with the letters, photos of license plates and other evidence, without any action being taken. They pressed libel charges, only to be actively obstructed by senior precinct police officers who were worried that having unresolved open cases would hurt their standing. In the meantime, Kubota, Kawakami and Ito, armed with Ino's photo, watched her residence and the local train station to plan the killing.

Murder

On 26 October 1999, Ino left her home on a bicycle, heading for Okegawa Station in Okegawa to attend afternoon classes at her college. Ito, watching from a nearby car, alerted Kawakami, who drove to the station and dropped off Kubota. As Ino got off her bicycle, Kubota walked up and stabbed her once in the side. As Ino turned, Kubota stabbed her again in the heart. Ino was pronounced dead at 0:50pm at Ageo Central General Hospital, with her cause of death listed as shock due to massive bleeding.

Immediately following Ino's murder, the Saitama police began a campaign of disinformation, falsely portraying her as a promiscuous flirt with a taste for expensive brand-name goods. The tabloids, then the mainstream press, quickly jumped on the bandwagon, manufacturing lurid stories about Ino working as an escort. The Komatsu brothers and their accomplices were not arrested until a journalist, Kiyoshi Shimizu, investigated the case for himself.[1] Shimizu's report, published in the magazine FOCUS, laid bare Ino's long ordeal with Komatsu, and included a photograph of her stalker.

On 19 December 1999, Kubota was arrested, and the next day Takeshi, Kawakami and Ito were also arrested. On 16 January 2000, eight other people were arrested for assisting with the harassment of Ino, and a warrant was issued for Komatsu, who managed to evade arrest and went to Sapporo, Hokkaido, where he was tracked by reporter Shimizu. On 27 January 2000, Komatsu's corpse was found in a lake in Teshikaga. Komatsu's death was found to be a suicide, with a note in his hotel luggage indicating that he had planned to kill himself soon after he had arranged Ino's murder.

Aftermath

A legislative hearing was convened into the handling of the Ino case by the Saitama Prefecture police, who were criticized in the media for dereliction of duty.[2] The head of the police force formally apologized to the Ino family. Following an investigation, six officers were disciplined and three senior police officers were fired and indicted on a documents falsification charge over their refusal to process the charges brought by Ino during Komatsu's harassment campaign.[3] On 7 September 2000, Toshio Katagiri and Hirokazu Furuta were each sentenced to a year and a half in prison, while Tsuyoshi Honda was sentenced to one year and two months in prison. However, they were allowed to receive suspended sentences. On 22 December 2000, Ino's family sued the Saitama police. On 16 February 2003, a district court ruled that the police would have to pay consolation money, but denied that police neglect had allowed Ino's murder to occur. On appeal, on 30 August 2006, the Supreme Court upheld the original sentence.

In November 2000, a stalker regulation law took effect as a result of Ino's murder.[4] In 2001, Shimizu received the Editors' Choice Magazine Journalism Award and the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan Reporting Award for his coverage of the Ino case. He would later receive the same awards again after getting an innocent man cleared of charges in the Ashikaga murder case (part of the North Kanto Serial Young Girl Kidnapping and Murder Case) and pointed out similarities with how the police and prosecutors handled the Ashikaga and Iizuka cases compared to the Ino case.[5]

Kubota was sentenced to eighteen years in prison. Kawakami and Ito were each sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Takeshi was sentenced to life imprisonment, but he appealed. On September 5, 2006, the Supreme Court upheld his original sentence.

Media

In Japan, the murder of Shiori Ino has been dramatized for television twice. One version, based on Shimizu's writing, was aired on October 28, 2002. Another version, in which Rina Uchiyama played the role of Ino, was aired on December 13, 2003.

See also

References
  1. Channel Surf (2002-10-27). "Romantics, reporter go far away, so close". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 2008-06-30. Retrieved 2008-01-22.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  2. Arikawa, Motoi (2006-05-16). "Crime reporting turns murky as cops clam up". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 2011-06-06. Retrieved 2008-02-14.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  3. "3 Saitama police officers dismissed over falsification". CNET Networks. 2000-04-10. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
  4. "Stalker-killer's life term upheld". The Japan Times. December 21, 2005. Archived from the original on June 30, 2008. Retrieved September 16, 2010.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  5. 『殺人犯はそこにいる: 隠蔽された北関東連続幼女誘拐殺人事件』 新潮社、2013年、ISBN 978-4104405022
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