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Kobe child murders
The Kobe child murders (Japanese: 神戸連続児童殺傷事件, Hepburn: Kōbe renzoku jidō sasshō jiken) occurred in Suma, Kobe, Japan on 16 March and 24 May 1997, when two children, 10-year-old Ayaka Yamashita (山下 彩花, Yamashita Ayaka) and 11-year-old Jun Hase (土師 淳, Hase Jun) were murdered. Yamashita was fatally injured in a series of assaults on elementary school girls between February and March 1997 while Hase was abducted, strangled, and mutilated before his severed head was left in front of a school.
The perpetrator, 14-year-old Shinichiro Azuma (東 真一郎, Azuma Shin'ichirō) used the alias Seito Sakakibara (酒鬼薔薇 聖斗, Sakakibara Seito) to write two messages to the public following the discovery of Hase's remains in May 1997, taunting police and threatening to commit more murders. Azuma was arrested in June 1997 and confessed to the murder of Jun Hase. He also admitted to killing Ayaka Yamashita and three additional attacks on schoolgirls.
As a juvenile offender, Azuma was prosecuted and convicted as "Boy A". Azuma's real name has not been officially released to the press because Japanese law prohibits publishing the identification, but in some weekly magazines his real name has been reported. Beginning in 2004, Azuma was released on provisional basis, with full release announced to follow on 1 January 2005. The murders and subsequent release of Azuma gained widespread attention from Japanese media and politicians.
On 10 February 1997, Shinichiro Azuma attacked two 12-year-old sixth-grade students of Minami-Ochiai Elementary School, at around 16:35 near an apartment complex in Nakaochiai district. The two girls were returning home when Azuma struck them in the back of the head. One of the injured girls required a week of treatment for the head wound.
On 16 March, at around 12:25, Azuma bludgeoned 10-year-old Ayaka Yamashita, a fourth-grade student of Ryugadai Elementary School, near a residential building in Ryugadai, causing her death the following week. Ten minutes after the attack, Azuma stabbed and injured a 9-year-old of girl with a 13-cm dagger outside of Tatsugaoka Park. The same day, Azuma wrote in his diary: "I carried out sacred experiments today to confirm how fragile human beings are... I brought the hammer down, when the girl turned to face me. I think I hit her a few times but I was too excited to remember."
The following week, when Yamashita was declared brain dead, he added on 23 March: "This morning my mom told me, 'Poor girl. The girl attacked seems to have died.' There is no sign of me being caught... I thank you, "Bamoidōkishin", for this... Please continue to protect me". As revealed in Azuma's manuscript "13 Years Imprisonment" ("懲役十三年"), "Bamoidōkishin" refers to an apparent deity, evidenced by the character 神 for "kami", whom Azuma claimed to have "created from hatred" in his childhood. The manuscript details a contract which would end with Azuma serving thirteen years in prison for committing murders as part of a "crime pact" to pledge allegiance with "Bamoidōkishin" in exchange for forgiveness of the same crimes.
On 15 May, Azuma stopped attending his third-year class at Tomogaoka Junior High School, after an incident two days earlier in which he had phoned a classmate for a meeting in the park and chipped some of his teeth by punching him in the mouth with his watch around the fist. His parents were regularly taking him to a children's psychiatrist during this time. The assault on the classmate was considered the high point in a number of other "eccentric delinquent acts" at his school, including stealing and burning other students' shoes, hitting people with a table tennis racket and slashing bicycle tires with a box cutter.
Just before 14:00 on 24 May, while walking a street of Tomogaoka, Azuma encountered 11-year-old Jun Hase, a special education pupil at Tainohata Elementary School, where Azuma had attended primary education. Hase was lured to Tank Mountain in Taihata, claiming he would show Hase a turtle. Azuma overpowered him and fatally strangled Hase using the strings of the boy's shoelaces. He then stole a hacksaw and padlock from a nearby co-op supermarket, and broke into an empty TV signal relay station on the mountain, in which he hid Hase's body. Hase was reported missing by his family the same evening.
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Kobe child murders
The Kobe child murders (Japanese: 神戸連続児童殺傷事件, Hepburn: Kōbe renzoku jidō sasshō jiken) occurred in Suma, Kobe, Japan on 16 March and 24 May 1997, when two children, 10-year-old Ayaka Yamashita (山下 彩花, Yamashita Ayaka) and 11-year-old Jun Hase (土師 淳, Hase Jun) were murdered. Yamashita was fatally injured in a series of assaults on elementary school girls between February and March 1997 while Hase was abducted, strangled, and mutilated before his severed head was left in front of a school.
The perpetrator, 14-year-old Shinichiro Azuma (東 真一郎, Azuma Shin'ichirō) used the alias Seito Sakakibara (酒鬼薔薇 聖斗, Sakakibara Seito) to write two messages to the public following the discovery of Hase's remains in May 1997, taunting police and threatening to commit more murders. Azuma was arrested in June 1997 and confessed to the murder of Jun Hase. He also admitted to killing Ayaka Yamashita and three additional attacks on schoolgirls.
As a juvenile offender, Azuma was prosecuted and convicted as "Boy A". Azuma's real name has not been officially released to the press because Japanese law prohibits publishing the identification, but in some weekly magazines his real name has been reported. Beginning in 2004, Azuma was released on provisional basis, with full release announced to follow on 1 January 2005. The murders and subsequent release of Azuma gained widespread attention from Japanese media and politicians.
On 10 February 1997, Shinichiro Azuma attacked two 12-year-old sixth-grade students of Minami-Ochiai Elementary School, at around 16:35 near an apartment complex in Nakaochiai district. The two girls were returning home when Azuma struck them in the back of the head. One of the injured girls required a week of treatment for the head wound.
On 16 March, at around 12:25, Azuma bludgeoned 10-year-old Ayaka Yamashita, a fourth-grade student of Ryugadai Elementary School, near a residential building in Ryugadai, causing her death the following week. Ten minutes after the attack, Azuma stabbed and injured a 9-year-old of girl with a 13-cm dagger outside of Tatsugaoka Park. The same day, Azuma wrote in his diary: "I carried out sacred experiments today to confirm how fragile human beings are... I brought the hammer down, when the girl turned to face me. I think I hit her a few times but I was too excited to remember."
The following week, when Yamashita was declared brain dead, he added on 23 March: "This morning my mom told me, 'Poor girl. The girl attacked seems to have died.' There is no sign of me being caught... I thank you, "Bamoidōkishin", for this... Please continue to protect me". As revealed in Azuma's manuscript "13 Years Imprisonment" ("懲役十三年"), "Bamoidōkishin" refers to an apparent deity, evidenced by the character 神 for "kami", whom Azuma claimed to have "created from hatred" in his childhood. The manuscript details a contract which would end with Azuma serving thirteen years in prison for committing murders as part of a "crime pact" to pledge allegiance with "Bamoidōkishin" in exchange for forgiveness of the same crimes.
On 15 May, Azuma stopped attending his third-year class at Tomogaoka Junior High School, after an incident two days earlier in which he had phoned a classmate for a meeting in the park and chipped some of his teeth by punching him in the mouth with his watch around the fist. His parents were regularly taking him to a children's psychiatrist during this time. The assault on the classmate was considered the high point in a number of other "eccentric delinquent acts" at his school, including stealing and burning other students' shoes, hitting people with a table tennis racket and slashing bicycle tires with a box cutter.
Just before 14:00 on 24 May, while walking a street of Tomogaoka, Azuma encountered 11-year-old Jun Hase, a special education pupil at Tainohata Elementary School, where Azuma had attended primary education. Hase was lured to Tank Mountain in Taihata, claiming he would show Hase a turtle. Azuma overpowered him and fatally strangled Hase using the strings of the boy's shoelaces. He then stole a hacksaw and padlock from a nearby co-op supermarket, and broke into an empty TV signal relay station on the mountain, in which he hid Hase's body. Hase was reported missing by his family the same evening.