On the morning of 23 April 1994, at the Inokashira Park, a janitor was cleaning out the rubbish bin when she opened a plastic bag and saw a human ankle...
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00:00On the morning of the 23rd of April 1994, a janitor was cleaning out the rubbish bin
00:06at the Inokashira Park when she opened a plastic bag and saw a human ankle.
00:23Welcome to Can You Solve It? Asian Crime Case edition on Shock Podcast,
00:27where we talk more about the unsolved cases in Asia and talk more about the theories behind them.
00:35My name is Abigail and today we have Jay here with me and we will be covering a case,
00:42a dismemberment case that happened in Japan. Okay. Yes, that is why today I brought sushi
00:50and feel free to eat anytime you want.
00:55And also regarding the case, if you have any questions, you can just ask me anytime.
00:59Okay. What would you do if you found human remains inside a rubbish bin?
01:06Like what would your first reaction be? I'll scream.
01:10Will you? Yeah. Okay. And then? And then call the police. Yeah, right. This is the normal people
01:16will do what? I think for me is I will not know what to do first and then I will call my dad.
01:24I feel like I will call my dad before I will call the police. Just, I don't know, I feel like in
01:30every emergency situation, I will always call my dad first. So that's probably what I would do first.
01:35Okay. And the reason why you scream is because you want to get the attention of people, is it?
01:40It's not like, it's not like, oh my god, what is this? It's like, can anybody come help?
01:44Okay. Got it. So the case actually happened in the Inukashira Park, west of Tokyo on the 23rd of
01:52April 1994. It happened in the morning, right? So that morning, a janitor was actually cleaning
01:59out the rubbish bin and she saw a bag, so a plastic bag that had holes at the bottom. I'm
02:07not sure whether you know, in Japan, they are actually like plastic bags with hole at the
02:11bottom to drain the water out. Ah. Yeah. Clever invention. Yes, yes, yeah. So she found a plastic
02:20bag with holes at the bottom and she thought that it was filled with fish because it had like a very
02:28weird smell. Raw fish. Raw fish kind of smell. I think that's what she smelled. So when she opened
02:36it, it wasn't fish, but what she saw was different body parts of a human being.
02:43So there's a few bags of that? Yes, there is. So in total, there was actually 24 bags
02:50of human remains, including two hands, two feet, a right shoulder and an ankle with pieces of flesh.
03:01Right. She alerted the authorities as soon as she found the first bag and the place was
03:08surrounded by investigators. So it was closed up and all the investigators came. And I think the
03:15thing that weirded me out the most or the thing that I feel is the most chilling is that
03:20the pieces of meat was actually cut into 20 cm by 30 cm. So it's all the same size.
03:29So the killer or killers actually cut everything into the same size and they actually cut through
03:35the muscle to remain like the same. So it's hard to cut through the bones too though? Yeah,
03:41but because they want to keep everything the same size, they cut through everything.
03:46They cut through the hardest muscle and everything like that. Oh my. Yeah. Something to note is that
03:52you know, the rubbish bin at the park was actually also 20 by 30 cm. So it's the same size
04:00as the plastic bags, which means whoever who put it inside the bin purposely wanted it to fit
04:09exactly like perfectly inside the rubbish bin. And the head, the torso and the genitals were
04:18actually never found. So until now, they still don't know where those parts are.
04:24But do they know who is the one who died? Yeah. So later on, during the investigations,
04:30they will actually find who the victim was. But for now, when they were going through,
04:38because like I said, they found the hands and the feet, right? Yeah. But actually all the
04:42fingerprints were actually all scraped off. Like the killers scraped all the fingerprints off. So
04:48they couldn't, initially they couldn't identify who the victim was because there was no head also.
04:53Yeah. Nothing, right? Yeah. And that was where the investigations started. So during the
04:59investigations, it was actually determined that there was no physical battery. So what physical
05:05battery means that there was no like assault on the body. No one hit the body, tied the body,
05:12strangled the body, nothing of that. And there was also no drugs found on the body.
05:18So how did the person die? No one knows. That was where the investigation continued, right? And
05:24another thing is that the body's blood. So you know, when you, when people cut you up, obviously
05:30there's blood, right? When you cut meat, there's blood that comes out. But there was no blood at
05:35all. All the blood was like washed away. It was drained. There was no blood at all. And you,
05:43basically the killer or killers had a very sick plan to wash away all the blood, right? Although
05:51there was no blood left, there was actually a bit of internal bleeding left at the muscle on the
05:56rib, which indicates, this part is so chilling, but this indicates, right, internal bleeding
06:03indicates that the body was actually cut up when the victim was still alive.
06:09What? Yeah. So imagine if you're alive now and someone just cuts your flesh into pieces,
06:21right? While you're still breathing and alive. I cannot imagine how bad the pain must have felt.
06:29And although most of the fingerprints were unidentifiable, some of the parts, I think they
06:37found like still a bit of fingerprint left. So what the police managed to do was, they managed
06:42to identify, three days later, they managed to identify the victim as Mr. S. Mr. S? Yes. He's
06:5035 years old. Seichi Kawamura was actually an architect and he was living around the area of
06:58Inokashira Park, right? He was actually a father and he had a wife who was pregnant with their
07:06second child at that time where his body was found, right? And he was reported to be last seen
07:18on the 21st of April at an office drinking event. And after that, allegedly, he met up with
07:27an acquaintance for karaoke and he parted ways with them at 11pm. So allegedly, he was last seen
07:35on the 21st of April at 11pm. Okay. Yeah. And because he didn't go home that night,
07:43the next day, his wife actually filed a missing person's report. The next day? The next morning,
07:50on the 22nd. So his body was found on the 23rd, right? On the 22nd, in the morning, his wife
07:56filed a missing person's report. Now, this is where the investigators start to look more into
08:04the perpetrator, the killer, right? And the investigators suspected that the killer most
08:11likely is a trained medical professional. Makes sense. Yeah. Or someone who has a lot of anatomy,
08:20surgical, medical kind of knowledge. Because I mean, how would you know where to cut? Yeah.
08:28And so precise. It's because the pieces that was cut into were very precise and very uniform.
08:35I feel like if you can imagine Legos to be stacked, I feel like it kind of is like that.
08:42Yeah. It's so sick. It's so sick to the stomach. And another thing is also that
08:48there was no effort made to cut the body at the joints, right? Where it's a bit more
08:55soft. So, you know, some parts of your body, your muscles, some parts is a bit more soft,
09:00some parts is a bit more tougher. But he didn't like cut into the soft part. He just went
09:06straight through. Like the easiest way to cut is the joint place? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. He just
09:12cut through. Yeah. Whoever just cut through. Okay. Because it's very hard to cut through human
09:20flesh or human body is so hard to cut through. So, it was suspected that it was cut by an
09:26electric saw. Electric saw. Electric saw. And but they also suspected that they used a blunt
09:33knife together with the electric saw. I don't know how it works. And it was also alleged that
09:39the way the backs were, the plastic backs were tied, right? Yeah. It was actually a bit, it's
09:46not a normal way to tie a plastic bag. It's a bit, it's the kind of knots where you tie
09:54if you're a fisherman or if you're a chef or if you're a medical personnel. Oh, when they do their
10:01surgeries, the kind of tie. Yeah. You know, when like after they throw everything, then they want
10:06to tie and throw it outside. So, why is it special? Why this kind of tying method is special, right?
10:14It's because this kind of tying methods actually prevent the odor, the smell and also the moisture
10:20from leaking out. Oh my god. Okay. So, I guess, you know, you don't want people to find out about the
10:27body. You don't want the smell to get out, right? But for me, personally, this is where it is a bit
10:32like, huh? In my opinion. Because do you remember I talked about the plastic bag with holes at the
10:38bottom? If he tied like that and he don't want the odor and he don't want the moisture to get out,
10:43but there's still holes at the bottom. Yeah. There's still, the smell will still come out from
10:47the bottom, right? Yeah. And like, so it's a bit like, um, yeah, it for me, it didn't really make
10:53sense. But maybe the smell is not going out from the plastic bag, but not from the garbage bin,
10:59isn't it? True, true, true, true. Because it's at the bottom, right? Yeah. The holes are at the
11:04bottom. Yeah. Could be that, right? So, as the case progressed, there was actually witnesses that came
11:12forward and claimed that they saw two men beating up someone who looked like Seiji. Mr. S? Mr. S.
11:21Okay. They saw some, they saw two men that looked like they were beating up this person
11:27who looked like Mr. S. And another one actually stated that at 4 a.m. in the morning before the
11:36discovery of the body was made, they actually saw two men displaying like really suspicious
11:42behavior where they were like carrying plastic bags around the park. Around the park, right?
11:48So, that was one of the claims from the witnesses. Another one was that,
11:55this is a bit more popular and a bit more well-known, is that one of the witnesses actually
12:00said that they heard a very loud sound on the 22nd of April. So, he went missing on the 21st, right?
12:06Yeah. So, they heard a very loud sound on the 22nd of April which sounded like a car crash.
12:12When is the time? What is the time? In the morning, so very early morning. So,
12:15he parted ways at 11 p.m. on the 21st. So, it could be before, it could be during that time,
12:22midnight to the early morning of 22nd, right? And he said it sounded like a car crash. So,
12:29then there was speculation going around that Seiji was hit by a car. And in order to cover up the
12:37crime, the person who committed or the person who crashed into Seiji might have, you know,
12:43tried and hide his body by cutting it up and stuff like that to cover his crime.
12:49How that they don't have the car accident reported?
12:52I don't think there was any reports on car accident because obviously the guy or whoever
12:57was trying to hide, right? Hide the whole situation. But the thing was, all these
13:03witnesses and all their testimonies were actually ruled out because as mentioned before, Seiji's
13:10body actually don't have any physical battery. That means he was not physically assaulted.
13:15So, right? Because there was no bruises, there was no cuts, nothing. So, it doesn't make sense
13:22if he got hit by a car or if he was beat up by the man, right? And in conclusion to that was that
13:32the investigators actually in total for this case, they investigated 37,000 people.
13:42They questioned 37,000 people but ultimately because there was no evidence, nothing,
13:47it couldn't lead them to any perpetrator and they didn't manage to find anyone.
13:54Right. So, for this case, actually initially it garnered a lot of Japanese media attention.
14:01So, you know, because I think it's very rare to hear people cut up
14:06pieces of human body and somehow it's very precise and uniform like blocks like that,
14:12right? You don't hear that very often. It sounds like planned murder.
14:17Exactly. So, initially like everyone was, their attention was so focused on this case
14:24but actually just three days later, there was a crash that happened. The China Airlines flight 140
14:30actually crashed. So, because of that, all the media's attention actually diverted to
14:37that incident instead and although there were still investigators present working on this case
14:46for another 11 months actually but most of the officers and the investigating team
14:52had to investigate another case that happened called the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
15:02and that was the following year. So, 11 months later which also meant that there was very few
15:07people left working on this case. Okay. So, finally in 2009, on the 23rd of April,
15:1815 years after the murder happened, the Statue of Limitations expired. So, what I mean by that,
15:24right, is that even though if someone managed to find who the killer is, the killer cannot be
15:31charged with murder anymore because the Statue of Limitations has expired on the case
15:36and the worst part is that on 2010, the Statues of Limitations pertaining to murder and crimes
15:45resulting in the death of persons was actually abolished. So, meaning that
15:52but it was only abolished for the cases after 1995. Meaning that any case that happened after 1995,
16:04if until now you managed to find a killer, we still can charge the killer but cases that happened
16:09before 1995, you cannot and Sechi's case happened in 1994. So, he barely missed the mark. Yeah. And
16:20it's very heartbreaking to see that justice cannot be served. Alright. So, now let's look into
16:29the theories behind this whole case. It was said that it could have been someone close to him,
16:36someone who knows him and stuff like that. So, what the police did, right, was actually the
16:41police looked into everyone around in his social circle. So, friends, families, colleagues, everyone
16:50and they questioned everyone but the most they got was they thought that it was the wife because
16:58what happened was, remember the wife reported him missing? Yeah. But the wife reported him missing
17:04very early the next morning. It's not usually when you report or usually missing persons report,
17:12you can only report it after 24 hours, right? Because, you know, sometimes they might be
17:16somewhere out and stuff like that but it wasn't even 24 hours and she reported it already. So,
17:22they found that a bit suspicious like, hey, how come you know and stuff like that, right? But what
17:27the wife's justification was, it was that Sechi would always come home. He will never not be at
17:36home at night. So, it was a bit unusual for him not to come home. That's why she immediately
17:42reported him the next day. Okay. There was no evidence too, right? There was no evidence also
17:47on the wife. So, that was the first theory and the second one is human organ traffickers. So,
17:54human traffickers, right? Because his organs, his head, everything, there was nothing. Only
18:00the other body parts. And so, it was most likely soaked to underground black market. That's what
18:07they were thinking. But actually, I found this really interesting. So, I saw on Reddit that
18:14someone mentioned if you were part of an illegal underground human trafficking ring, right? Why
18:21would you cut someone's body up and leave it in such a public place? Yeah. You know what I mean?
18:26Because you don't want people to know that you are operating such a thing. Yeah, though. So,
18:31why would you expose the body in such a public place? And this is the only case like people cut
18:36it into like so same size. Exactly. And also some of the fingerprints or you don't want people to
18:41know. But at the same time, you want people to find the body. It doesn't make sense, right? So,
18:46that was quite a popular theory. Next, we will go into theory 3 which was Seichi was actually
18:54murdered by a cult because he tried to leave the cult. Oh, he was in a cult before? Yeah. So,
19:02it was alleged that Seichi was a member of an unidentified religious organization in Tokyo.
19:10And he had very close relations with the people there. So, maybe it could be when he wanted to
19:16leave. They weren't happy for it. Makes sense. They weren't happy about it. So, they tried to
19:22kill him. But some thought that it couldn't be just the doing of one person. So, it was highly
19:29likely it might have been a cult. You know, several people come together to murder him.
19:35It was actually raised. Someone said like, because for a person to murder someone,
19:42on top of that, cut it into equal sizes, drain all the blood. Yeah. It is very hard for a person
19:51who is mentally sane to be doing such a thing. And in quite a short time though. Yeah. For me,
19:58I will feel very nosh. I feel like I will vomit. Yeah. Right. What to do? What to do? I don't know
20:04It's a normal human reaction if you are cutting. For me at least, if I'm cutting meat, I already
20:11feel very girly already. Yeah. What more if you're cutting a human body, right? So, it could be
20:20people from the extreme part of the cult. Their minds are already controlled by the cult. So,
20:27they don't have a sense of their own and they decided to commit this crime.
20:32But there was no concrete evidence that he was ever part of a cult. So, it was just a theory
20:38that was stated. So, the last one is the most popular theory and it was a mistake of identity.
20:46And what I mean by that is, during that time, Seiji actually had a neighbor who looked a lot
20:52like him and let's call him Mr. K. So, Mr. K has actually been mistaken as Seiji many times. So,
21:01people would go up to Mr. K and be like, hey, hi Seiji. Because he looks alike. They look alike.
21:06Okay. So, and at that point of time, Mr. K was actually doing business in around the Inukashira
21:14Park. So, he was holding his businesses and stuff like that. But there was a lot of competition from
21:24foreign street vendors. So, there was people coming in trying to start up their own businesses
21:29as well. And Mr. K wasn't happy about it. So, he would find ways to chase them out.
21:36I don't know, get them to leave, basically. I mean, he wants his business to prosper. He
21:43don't want their business to do well. So, he would chase them out and everything like that.
21:48But one of the foreign vendors that he tried to chase out turned out to be a part of an unspecified
21:55foreign criminal organization. Okay. And because of that, that organization tried to get rid of
22:04Mr. K. Oh, so this is the most popular. Yes, this is the most popular theory. So, Mr. K,
22:13in order to hide from this organization, he went to different places to sleep for the night. So,
22:19he was never in that area anymore. He would one day stay in a hotel, next day stay somewhere else
22:24to just hide from this organization. So, after he saw the news about Sechi's death, he came to
22:31the realization that maybe I was the intended target. Because remember, he looked like Sechi,
22:37they look alike. So, it could be the organization mistaken him, saw Sechi and thought he was Mr. K
22:45and killed him instead. But Mr. K's claims actually remained unidentified. So, we don't know
22:53whether is it true? Was there actually a criminal organization? We don't know.
23:00So, these are the four theories. Amongst other theories, these are more popular ones.
23:09So, what do you think? What do you think about the case? Do you have any theories of your own?
23:14Or who do you think the killer or killers are? And maybe what were their motives?
23:23For me, because it's not, there's not a lot of evidence there. So, I think the cult,
23:31it makes sense to me though. Because the cult, they have like a lot of different people,
23:36different occupation people gathered inside. So, they might be doctors. Interesting.
23:44I never thought of that. True, true, true. And also because like their minds are so controlled,
23:50they might not know that what they are doing is actually so evil and sinister. They might just be
23:56like, you know, just another day. And then like go and murder people or whatnot, right? Definitely,
24:02to a certain extent, I think it's planned as well. Because they even know the size of the
24:07garbage bin though. True. For people who live nearby or people who frequently went to the park.
24:15True. Certainly, like to a point, I think it's definitely planned. That's why I don't think
24:21the accident really happened. The car crash accident. Because it's so sudden. And definitely,
24:27they already planned like where, which rubbish bin to throw into, where he will be at that time.
24:33And they know there's a lot of rubbish bin inside there. True. Yeah. So, for me, this case has been
24:41really, really chilling. When I was researching, I was just like, oh, it's so gruesome to even
24:46think about it, right? There's no CCTV that time, right? No, I don't think so. 1994. Even if there
24:54was, it's blurry. It's probably going to be blurry. And also, I think because it happened in a park,
25:00I don't think there were many CCTVs at a park during that time. Even now, I don't think there's
25:07a lot of CCTVs in a park. Yeah. As the statute of limitations expired in 2009, till this day,
25:15the case has still not yet been solved. The killer or killers could still be roaming around
25:22the streets waiting for another chance to strike again. Thank you for listening to Can You Solve
25:28It? Asian Crime Case Edition on Shock Podcast. Do you have the same theories? Let us know.
25:34Stay safe and see you soon.