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Miyoko Sumida
Born	(1948-10-12)October 12, 1948 Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan
Died	(2012-12-12)December 12, 2012
Cause of death	suicide
Details
Victims	8–13
Span of crimes	1987–2011
Country	Japan
State(s)	Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture
Date apprehended	2011

Miyoko Sumida (角田 美代子, Sumida Miyoko, born Oct 12, 1948)is a Japanese serial killer, planner and leader of Amagasaki Serial Murder Incident. By family hijacking, Miyoko Sumida exploits and breaks up multiple families to form her own family, Violent other people, and even kill them. The victim's family claimed that they were illegally imprisoned during that time, but was unable to report to the police because they were forced to participate in criminal activities. The case caused an uproar in Japan at that time, and Miyoko Sumida commits suicide in prison, making the police unable to confirm the details of the case. This case has also received widespread attention from criminal novelists and criminal psychologists.

This case was also included in the crime documentary "Unresolved Incidents"(未解决事件) by NHK.

Background

Miyoko Sumida (角田美代子) was born on October 12, 1948, in Amagasaki, Hyogo, Japan. Her parents divorced when she was in primary school and lived a life without a home. When she was 16, she met her husband and lived with him. At the age of 23, the Korean Miyoko married and became a Japanese, but the marriage lasted only two years. Later, Miyoko worked in a prostitution bar called "Snaku" in Amagasaki. And in a few years, she became a bar signboard. According to the bar owner, she gets to know many triads at that time and often asked them to resolve disputes in the bar by violence. At the age of 49, Miyoko attended a distant relative's funeral. In the end, She invited everyone to attend "family meeting", everyone present was afraid of her triad background, no one dared to refuse. she accusing the funeral of improperly and made them reflect, use this way to detain them.

According to the victim's dictation, they could not go to work normally, they had to kneel to listen to her when they came home from work. To intensify their family conflicts, Miyoko provoked them to use violence against their families. The victim's family could only do so because they dared not resist her. In the meantime, she asked them to quit their jobs and sell their property to her. Then she let the couple live separately, and the children stayed in their own homes as hostages. They even chose two favorite children to adopt as adoptive children and into her household registration. In their memory, Miyoko often captured the escaped people, and these people are often abused.

Alleged crimes

Due to intensified family conflicts and the imprisonment of Miyoko, one of the old women named Menwaki tried to call for help through the window. One time, her neighbor discovered the anomaly, so she asked the police department for help. The police said: "We can't intervene because it not causing a specific crime." Menwaki was then transferred to another place of residence and imprisoned. Sumida's condominium, with three rooms and a living space, is on the top floor of an eight-story building. The living room is filled with luxury furniture, according to investigative sources. The balcony is surrounded by a wooden fence, preventing people from seeing inside. It was found in subsequent investigations and interviews that Miyoko Sumida killed many people directly or indirectly. Some people committed suicide, some died of illness during their escape, and others were abused to death.

According to the personal dictation of the principal offender afterward. After spending the savings of the two families, Miyoko led them to steal the nearby warehouse. One of them ran to the police station to surrender, but Miyoko Sumida was arrested only for theft and was soon released. Crimes such as ill-treatment and homicide are caused by violence between family members, and the victims themselves are also perpetrators, Miyoko rarely does it herself. so these members are unwilling to confess their crimes to the police. After that, she even invaded other relatives, squandered their property, and deliberately murdered to snatch high amounts of inheritance and insurance money. In 2003, Miyoko Sumida and others invaded the family’s home in Takamatsu. According to sources, Sumida was infuriated because the sisters’ parents had refused to live with their nephew, Masanori Sumida, the sources said. During the occupation of the house, the parents suffered months of violence from Miyoko Sumida, Masanori Sumida and others. Miyoko Sumida even forced the daughters to turn against their parents. Tanimoto, the father’s older brother, was later brought into the ring, the sources said. The mother was reportedly reduced to skin and bone and died of an illness. The father was forced to borrow 18 million yen from his relatives before Sumida and her subordinates finally left for Amagasaki, taking with them the two daughters and Tanimoto, the sources said.

search

In November 2011, the seriously injured Kae Oe came to the police station and Miyoko was arrested on suspicion of injury. In the follow-up investigation, the police found that many cases in Amagasaki were related to Miyoko. This included the original owner of the apartment they lived in, Jiro Hashimoto, the husband of Miyoko ’s unrelated sister. The police department said Miyoko Sumida conspired with the seven others to put the body of Jiro Hashimoto, then 53, in the sea off Bizen, Okayama Prefecture and disguised as accident, thus obtaining an accident insurance of ¥ 90 million. According to investigative sources, Hashimoto, Mieko Sumida's brother-in-law, only have limited of food before dead. In police interviews, Sumida’s relatives said they lived in an apartment with her in Amagasaki last year. He attempted to flee from Miyoko Sumida many times but was eventually brought back to the condominium in 2009 and confined there. They said they were forced to assault Hashimoto and then lock him in a shed on the balcony for several days until he died. The police reportedly believe Sumida intentionally made sure he died from neglect. Sources close to Miyoko Sumida said more corpses linked to the case have been dumped in Okayama and Kagawa prefectures. The police believe she played a key role in the deaths. Other reports said she intimidated her victims and exerted some sort of mind control over them. The police immediately arrested the seven suspects in the apartment: Miyoko Sumida's common-law husband Yoritaro Tei, 62; adopted first son Kentaro Sumida, 30; second son Yutaro Sumida, 25; daughter-in-law Rui Sumida, 27; Mieko Sumida, 59; Yasushi Nakashima, 42, the husband of Yutaro Sumida's sister-in-law; and Masanori Ri, 38. This involved six men and two women who committed crimes, ranging in age from 25 to 64. Because of the intricate family relationship, they were later called "piranha family" by the media. Detailed icons were drawn for them to outlining the convoluted relationships between the victims and the alleged perpetrators.

In July 2012, the police had found the body of Kae ’s mother, Kazuko Oe, 66, in a concrete-filled metal bucket at a warehouse in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture. Surprisingly, Kae was allegedly involved in the murder of his mother.

In October 2012, three white bones were found under the floor of a dilapidated house, and the police concluded that this high probability was related to Miyoko. Three bones were later identified as Takashi Tanimoto, born in 1944, Mitsue Ando, born in 1941, and Mariko Nakashima, born in 1982.

On October 30, 2012, the body of Jiro Hashimoto in a metal bucket was salvaged at the port.

On the modus operandi, suspect Miyoko said that they beat the victims and locked them in a warehouse on the balcony until they starved or dehydrated. Then the body was dismembered and placed in a metal bucket filled with concrete. Other arrested suspects had confessed to the crime almost entirely. She also claimed that she would accept full blame for all the deaths.

The main perpetrator Miyoko committed suicide in the detention center of Hyogo Police Headquarters on December 12, 2012.According to police, she was confirmed to have been dozing in her cell until around 6am but ten minutes later she was found to have stopped breathing.She was immediately taken to a hospital, where she was confirmed dead. After investigation, Hyogo police found that she had had several verbal records of suicidal tendency before this, but did not fully share this information when transferring suspects , Leading to lack of vigilance in the guards. In this way, the truth of all cases is unknown.

The final result of the investigation revealed that In the series of mysterious cases, a total of eight people, including Oe, have been confirmed to have died. Three people linked to Sumida have been missing.

Trial and conviction

This was a criminal activity involving multiple people. When Miyoko Sumida was arrested, the prosecutor could not prosecute her for murder. The police are also unable to ascertain the level of participation of family members and the exact number of deaths, which results in a lot of time to be charged and tried.

Regarding the allegation of the murder of Kazuko Oe, the defender believed that the three defendants were in a state of mental loss at that time, and their ability to judge good or bad was significantly reduced. However, the prosecution believed that the three defendants could still take the initiative to take action, so they did not lose their mental state, so they rejected it. Besides, taking into account the level of violence and abuse suffered by everyone, and Kae ’s surrender, finally on October 13, 2015, the presiding officer Masahiro Hosoi sentenced Hiroyuki Kawamura to three years in prison and five years of probation. Oe's first daughter, Kae, 45, received a three-year jail sentence, suspended for four years, and Yumi, 42, was given a two-year sentence, suspended for three years.

On November 19, 2014, the judge conducted the first trial of Miyoko's second son Miyoko Sumida. Miyoko Sumida only admitted to being involved in the destruction of one corpse and two counts of murder, denying the other four crimes. The Judge considered him subordinate, but the prosecutor considered him more "active" than other criminal involvement. Since the system was launched in May 2009, This is the longest trial involving lay judges. On March 18, 2015, the court finally sentenced him to 17 years in prison.

Up to now, six of the eight appeals in this series of cases have been resolved.

Social response

Rumor of “mental control” of the victim ’s family caused panic among the people. For nearly half a year, people in Amagasaki dare not go out. In the following period, there was a detailed analysis by criminal psychologists, which slowed the panic of the local people. Since the entire case spanned nearly 30 years, several cases had alarms from the kidnapped and witnesses, but the police did not intervene in family disputes and did not file a case. They missed many opportunities to arrest the murderer and were condemned by many local people. After that, the Japanese police set up a special team to investigate family disputes and violence to avoid similar incidents. It also strengthened the management of detention facilities to prevent suspects from committing suicide.

At the same time, the Japanese police found that the proportion of elderly offenders increased significantly. Japan is experiencing a crime wave committed by the elderly. Their pensions do not go as far as they should, A lot of them are experiencing financial problem, and have to rely on minor crimes to survive. To deal with the problem, the Japanese government is spending 8.3 billion yen on building three new prison wards specifically designed to cater to the rising number of elderly inmates.

The incident was restored in the form of a documentary. Takamura Kaoru, a well-known Japanese female crime writer, visited people involved in the incident, thus restoring Miyoko's criminal process against Tanimoto. The film aired on June 9, 2013, included in "Unresolved Incidents"(未解决事件) by NHK.

References

Category:Murder in Japan Category:Torture in Japan Category:Amagasaki Category:Serial murders in Japan