[Unresolved Murder] Japanese journalist's update on the Setagaya family murders UnresolvedMysteries

Quick Wikipedia article about the Setagaya family murder for the uninitiated: [here]

The bizarre behavior of the perpetrator, and the police's inability to capture a suspect when the perpetrator has left blood and his own feces at the scene, have been the main focus of this case:

As details were gradually released to the public, it was clear that the circumstances of the crime bordered on the bizarre. According to a police reconstruction, upon entering the house shortly before midnight, the killer stabbed to death the two parents and daughter and strangled the son. He then lingered in the house, helping himself to the contents of the refrigerator (including ice cream), going online to surf the internet and using the toilet. He napped on the second floor sofa and departed the crime scene shortly after 10 a.m.

The investigators must have felt confident they would get their man, as the criminal left behind a veritable cornucopia of forensic evidence. Shoes and articles of clothing suggested a possible link to South Korea. Even more curious was the DNA extracted at the scene, which pointed to a male with East Asian ancestry — but not necessarily Japanese — on his father’s side, and what appeared to be south European ancestry on his mother’s side.

This excerpt is from this article, which is about the book this update comes from.

Apparently fingerprints lifted from the crime scene were traced back to an unnamed Korean national, and Japanese government has asked the Korean government for the official cooperation in investigation, but the Korean government refused. There are other evidences supporting he is Korean too, i. e. his shoes and fanny pack which were made in Korea. (But there is a lot of debates in his nationality, since these appeared to be bought in Japan and there were sand granules most likely originated from California found in his fanny pack.)

A crime journalist, Fumiya Ichihashi(who publishes under the name Fumiya Hitosubashi), has acquired the unnamed Korean suspect's name and other personal information, flew to Korea, and investigated it himself. Ichihashi calls the unnamed Korean suspect by the pseudonym of In-un Lee(이인은,李仁恩).

According to him, Lee's footprints and fingerprints closely matched those of the scene, and Lee had known many details of the case that weren't officially released by the police. Lee was now working in the Korean military. Lee claimed he was only hired to kill the Miyazawa family by an 'underground real estate developer' named 'Kaneda'.

The reason for this? Apparently, the family had cash worth $1,200,000 at the time of the crime. The city of Tokyo was trying to expand the park which was right behind the Miyazawa family's house, so they compensated everyone in the neighborhood generously. Miyazawa family planned to move out of the house at April, and they were the last house to stay in the neighborhood. Kaneda heard about this and asked Lee to carry out the robbery. To Ichihashi's own research, this 'Kaneda' figure is big in Japanese underworld/organized crime scene, who possesses ridiculous amount of wealth.

Few points validate this theory:

1. Family friends stated the neighborhood was near vacant because the city did indeed plan to expand the park which was situated behind the Miyazawas' house. Majority of the people already moved out after accepting the generous compensation the city of Tokyo offered. (Despite this, the exact amount of money Miyazawa family was offered was unclear.)
2. Every drawers/storage spaces were opened and searched. There were documents and other miscellaneous paper articles strewn in the bath tub, as if they were discarded after looking through, searching for something. Their bank books, driver's license, credit cards were organized neatly on the second floor sofa.

The book this theory was published in can be found on Japanese Amazon. Found excerpts of this book translated into Korean online, and then I translated that into English. I don't know how true this theory might be. But an interesting point.

Submitted June 04, 2017 at 04:55AM by cannibaltofus http://ift.tt/2qSVeWF UnresolvedMysteries