Episode 13: The House He Never Left - The Setagaya Family Murder

A family of four was murdered inside their Tokyo home.

Then the killer stayed.

He left behind blood.
Clothes.
A knife.
Fingerprints.
DNA.

Clues everywhere.

But more than twenty years later…

no name.

No arrest.

No answer.

This is the Setagaya Family Murder.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

A family of four was murdered inside their Tokyo home. Then the killer stayed. He left behind blood, clothes, a knife, fingerprints, DNA. Clues everywhere. But more than twenty years later, with no name, no arrest, no answer. This is the Sethagaya family murder.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome back to Tell Me the Crime episode 13. We have some special news today.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

What special news?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Dr. Grundy. Babriana just got her PhD. So yeah, congrats to her. Don't tell people about it. I'm pretty sure that people are gonna know.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Yeah. But uh yeah, she crushed it, obviously. I'm not surprised. Good job, babe.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Thanks. I'm very proud of you. Thank you. Well, he was coaching me, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Are you are are you like feeling weird about people calling you doctor now?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah. I'm actually still very I don't know, I feel a little bit confused of the transitions of the stage, because usually I had really packed schedules. And I still have some um several things to submit, right? But um kind of feel like w what's going on?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, because you don't have courses to do, you don't have things to like submit, you're not teaching. I know, you're not getting graded on a bunch of shit now, so yeah, so it's kind of uh kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Because uh you you come back to like the normal people's lives, yep. But then that is not your reality for at least like the past five years, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

True, true, true.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Okay. Oh, we're not talking about the psychology podcast today.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah, true. But uh what uh I mean we always have psych elements in it though.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

That's true. Not not about my defense. Oh, we can actually talk about that. That would be really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

I know. Maybe not for this podcast, though. They want to hear about crime. So let's hear it. Let's hear it. What do you got us what do you got for us today?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Okay. Uh the title of today's episode is The House He Never Left. The Setagaya Family Murder.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Oh, where's this one based? Is this another Indonesian one?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

No.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Do you think Setagaya's Indonesian?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

No.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Setagaya. Setagaya.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

You do not have a sense of what language it is.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Not really. What is it?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

This is actually from Japan.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Okay. What Japanese words do you know?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Like none, basically.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Okay, well, at least you know like some.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

How about like Japanese dressing? That's counting. I think. I think that's Japanese. I don't know. I could have just been super racist right there. Whoops.

unknown 3:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Alright, so today's story is about a family of four that was found dead in their home in Tokyo, Japan.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Ooh, shit. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah. So a father, a mother, um, there was an eight-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Okay. But this case is not only remembered because of what happened to the family, um, it is also remembered because of what the killer did after.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Oh, okay. Well, if uh I'm gonna guess I already have a guess, but I'm not gonna be. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

What's your theory now? I only gave you very short intro to that.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah, but you gave me the title. What's your theory? You gave me the title though.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Oh that's mine.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

He said he never left, right? So I assume that he like killed his family and then he hid it in the wall or something, and then just like never left.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Wait, wait, what? The killer hid himself in the wall?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Yeah. Because you like if you do something like that, like you hear these stories, or like at least I've seen it on TV, where they like hide in the wall, or they hide in like an attic and they live up in there for like a few days, and then like the police come, investigate the whole house, don't see that there's a killer, they don't see that there's a murderer anywhere, and they just assume he's out rent run away somewhere, but really he's just he never left the home.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Okay, I think you we probably could solve this uh this crime because Okay. Because um Well, I'm I'm not going to give you all the details right now, or my because or my conclusions out of this, but we probably need your help to uncover what happened at this time.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Okay, okay. Let's hear it.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Okay, as I said, and you also have reiterated just now. Um he did not leave right away.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Mm-hmm. He stayed, he also left um several things. You know, he left clothes, he uh a knife, blood, handkerchiefs.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

And this is just but who is the he though?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Is this the murderer killer?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Right, but who is he? Is he the husband? Is he a political?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

All of the family all of the the family was killed.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Wait, this is the thing that I that Mongin's always thinking. Like family, it's um I know when you cut it as a singular unit. But inside you have some people, so you say a family was killed or family were killed.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Actually, that's a good question. Family, well now I'm getting tripped up myself all the time. Family was killed, I'm pretty sure, but I think the family were killed, I think you could probably say that too. I don't know. Like that also doesn't sound wrong. But I don't know, I'm not a linguist, you are.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

So we're not gonna do that today, but I will choose family was killed. Okay. So the father, mother, uh, eight-year-old daughter, and a six-year-old son, all of them were killed.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

So definitely this person whom I just told you, um, that stayed in the house and left everything.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Okay, yeah. I must have I must have missed that the husband was there too that got killed. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Okay, so it was December 31st, 2000.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

New Year's Eve, right? And uh just like in any other places, but this time um the setting was in Tokyo. Um families were getting ready to welcome a new year, people were cleaning their homes, they're preparing food, you know, it's just the uh ordinary celebration. Um, so you could describe it that way, or you could visualize the um right, the moment at that time. Okay, generally a happy time. Generally a happy time.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

But in one quiet neighborhood in Setagaya, I hope I pronounced this uh right, yeah. Something was wrong. So a family could not be reached, and the house was too quiet.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Okay. And then when someone finally went inside, what they found would become one of Japan's most haunting unsolved cases.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Oh, it's unsolved. Okay, okay. So we're not gonna know, but there are theories, I assume. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Mm-hmm. That's why I said you probably could uncover some of the underlying things for this crime, okay?

SPEAKER_03 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Alright. And um, where was I?

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Uh the family uh got murdered and uh someone came and found them eventually.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, I don't have ADHD.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Not at all. No, nor do I.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

No. Okay. So what makes this case so disturbing is not only the murder itself, right? But it is what happened after. Because whoever entered the house did not immediately disappear into the night. He, the killer, stayed, and somehow, after leaving behind so many traces of himself, he still vanished.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Wow. And they still have no clue who it is, like that's cra So he left a bunch of shit there. Yes, you know that's that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

That's so creepy. There is this one time, I think I don't know if I told you about it, but I I think I did. Um, my buddies and I went out one time, it was like several years back, and we went out to the bars and came back, and we we l there are three of us living there. Um, but we uh you know we often had friends over and stuff too. Um anyway, we come back from the bar and we all just like passed out. Uh one of my buddies was passed out on the couch, you know, and then there were two of us upstairs. And we woke up in the morning and we were robbed.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

What?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah, yeah. Crazy, right? Yeah, so there was someone that came in in the middle of the night and they didn't just like and and the reason it comes up now is because whoever came in came in and tried on all of my shoes, stole a couple of pairs, yeah. Like lit and and one of my buddies was sitting was sorry, passed out right on the couch, right where he was doing all the this was in an apartment, yeah. Yeah, but we always left our apartment like unlocked. Open.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

And so like, um, yeah, so someone came in, tried shit on, stole the guy's phone who was on the couch, and then like stole the PlayStation and like a whole bunch of other shit all around. So they weren't even being quiet. I was like, oh man, was this like someone, you know, hyped up on drugs or something? Because like who the hell has that, you know, who has that much like confidence to just go ahead and do shit like that?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

My theory to that. This person um should probably know that all of you were passed out, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah, well they're sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

So it's maybe uh somebody someone passed. He was probably like following you guys in the bar. It's possible, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

I was thinking that too. It's like someone probably just like followed us in, watched us like stumbling home.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

But the thing is, is that like how do you not assume that at least one of us could wake up? It's you know, we're three men. Like, I don't know, it just seems like pretty ballsy to do that and not think you're gonna have any consequences at all. I mean, the person didn't, obviously, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

And there was no CTV at all to trace this?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

No, not at the time. I didn't have cameras back then. Hmm. Anyway. Okay, back back to the story. So what happened? What happened next? So what else did this guy leave behind?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Well, let me tell you this. Before there was this was a case, right? Let's talk about the family, and you can picture the neighborhood as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Okay. Um the official name of the case is the robbery and quadruple murder of a family in Kami Soshigaya Tikom. Three comb. But it is more commonly known as the Setagaya family murder. So according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, the crime happened from around 11 pm on December 30th, 2000 to dawn on December 31st.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Okay. Um, yeah, so I spilled some of the evidence already.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Um, the story is the killer stayed there, he left several things behind. Oh my god, I got an email.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

That's okay. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah, I should actually close that.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Well, you can just turn off the volume on your black house. I know, I did not do it. Well, you can do it now. Okay. Yeah, but you're good, don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

The killer disappeared, and the case is still unsolved. Okay, so a lot of um things that are strange. And the family was the Miyazawa. Miyazawa family. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Okay. And there was this Mikio Miyazawa. So he's the father. Wow. He was 44 years old at that time.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Oh shit, he's only a year older than me. Oh, scary.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And uh, according to the official police flyer, Mikio worked for a foreign affiliated company, and uh he was also involved in corporate identity work for major corporations. Um, they describe him as somebody who loved animation and he had been involved in puppet and theatrical play when he was in a school. So a pretty creative guy.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah, yeah, sounds like it.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

And then there was his wife, Yasuko Miyazawa. She was 41.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Okay. Okay. She was 41, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Mm-hmm. And she ran a cram school from their home. Do you know what a cram school is?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

No idea.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Um, it's like giving extra lessons or tutoring. Usually help students with their school um lessons or exams, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Right, right. So like supplementary schooling to help them catch up, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Okay. Or I would call it like private, private tutorial. So that house was not only a private family home, right? Because she was doing uh that gram school. She was she was having the gram school. Okay. So it was also a place where her children came to study. Okay. Um, and then there is this daughter, Nina, and she was eight years old. She loved ballet and piano lessons. Very lovely. And then uh Ray, their son, and Ray was only six years old, so he wasn't in the kindergarten.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

I always wonder what kind of like sick people are going around killing families and like kids. Like just like it just seems like oh my god, like I don't think there's anything that can justify that.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Anyway, okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Okay, so Mikio again, Mikyo is the father, Yasuko is the mum, Nina is the little girl, and Ray is the little boy. Okay, now their last ordinary day, which was on December 30th, 2000. Everything was just normal as usual. Um the official police flyer says that the family went shopping near I don't know how to pronounce this, Chitose Karaisuyama Station.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Okay, I'm not even gonna attend gonna attempt the sales. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

So they reported that they actually went to the show. They went shopping. Um yeah, they went shopping for that near the station.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Okay, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

And later, later that evening they came home, they had dinner and watched television together. Um, so three things shopping, dinner, television, just number of family things, right? And at that moment there was no reason to know that this would become their last night.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Who would think? No, of course, I know. Like I said, like they're not much older than we are. No, family. Oh, today was our last day. Like, oh no.

unknown 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

We haven't done enough, we're still broke.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

We'll get there. We'll get there.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

I know.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Okay, no, let's describe the house. This house uh that the family was living in, um it's in Setagaya, Tokyo. And then their house was near Soshigaya Park. Okay. So the location here matters because according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, when the family moved into the area in around 1990, there were around 200 households nearby.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Okay. Okay, 200. Normal. Right. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

But because of the planned expansion of the park, many residents had moved away. And by the time of the murders, only four houses, including uh Miyazawa family's house, remain in that area.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Okay. So it's tiny, it it yeah, it got way smaller. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah, so a neighbor that used to be busier, um it turned down to be just fewer homes around. And it was a quiet winter night, New Year's Eve coming, and this is where the questions begin. Did the killer know the area, you think?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Well, it sounds like it. I mean, at least like they're aware that they're in an area that they could probably get away with shit.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, or maybe whether or not he knew the family.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Well, he could. I mean, it's very possible. And we're assuming it's a he, we don't know. Were the clothes and everything?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Like is that yeah. Well, yeah, we're assuming. Because the case is still unsolved.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Right, but were the clothes and everything were they that were found in the house where they No, we're gonna talk about that. Okay. Okay, we'll talk we'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Okay. Um, but that's the um neighborhood where they were living in, okay?

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

And then that night definitely changed everything. So the official page uh says that the crime happened from around 11 pm on Saturday to dawn. And while many families in Tokyo were preparing for the new year, that terrible thing happened to them inside the Miyazawa home. Okay. So uh police identified the weapon that they found as Yanagiba kitchen knife, which is a knife used for cutting fish for sasimi, sashimi.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Ah, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

So that's one of the things that he found there. And at some point during the crime, the killer also appears to have injured himself. Um the official police page also says that the uh perpetrator sustained injuries on his hand during the offense.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Okay, so they found blood then. That's what uh and the blood type is A.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

So, you know, a lot of details about the case is unsolved.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Huh. That's so bizarre. So the person obviously wasn't in the system, like at least in the police system. And huh. So the blood was found, they had clothes, they had a whole bunch of shit. They had, I mean, it could have been like a totally random passerby, right? That had nothing to do with it. You never know. Because sometimes these, you know, we want to assume that there's some sort of logical explanation because that's what humans do, right? We try to find it nearly pretty much. Like we try to find something that makes sense, but doesn't mean there actually is in reality. So it could be completely random. And I don't know. Yeah. Okay, that's very interesting. Okay. Yeah. And so when they um when the police came in and found all of this stuff, they like they literally had like no suspects at the beginning. Did they have any like an idea who could have done it?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

They're trying to find um some, you know, like from maybe the material of the knife or where like the store of this that uh somebody potentially bought this from.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Oh yeah, that was the question I was gonna ask is about the sushi thing. So was it um was it a knife that came from the home of the family of the victims, or was that knife, did that knife belong to the perpetrator?

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Oh, that's a very interesting question.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Because like if we yeah, because if it was the perpetrator, then that might say something about who this person was, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Mm-hmm. But more details also matter here, right? Like what he was doing um in the house. Apparently the report suggests that after the murders, the killer remained in the house uh for some times. He used things inside the home.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

He may have eaten, or he may have drunk um items from the kitchen. He used the bathroom, you know? So he well, I'm assuming it's a he. He left the uh feces.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Oh, feces, yeah. He took a dump. That's what you're trying to say.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

I'm trying to be very careful.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Trying to be a lady.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

I'm trying to be a lady. Yeah. So he used the bathroom. Uh he even treated his injuries, and uh he may have used the family computer. This is very interesting because um the police could trace the uh the activity in the laptop or in the computer.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

And what was he searching on the computer?

SPEAKER_00 21:47

No information presented on that. But they could find like the timestamp uh when he was using the computer.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah, so That's the uh evidence. So they uh thought that the killer definitely did not seem to leave immediately, right? 'Cause you know, he enjoyed some time there.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Why do you think a killer would do that?

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Well, I mean, it's a pretty isolated area, right? Like maybe there was no need to rush. Like, if the houses were fur far enough apart, maybe there were no screams to be heard by anyone, and there was really no rush to get out of there. If he was pretty confident that, you know, he got away with everything without any authorities being alerted, I mean, there's really no rush for him to leave. He can spend time. Although if he if he really did have time like that, you'd think he would spend time cleaning up his ship.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yeah, he did not. And he didn't, he did not.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Which is really weird, right? Yeah. Like, why wouldn't you clean up all of your stuff? It doesn't really make much sense.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Mm-hmm. So the least of the clues that he left behind include a sweatshirt, a crusher hat, a hip bag, a scarf, a black unique clo airtek jacket, gloves, athletic shoes, two black handkerchiefs, and the knife.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

It's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah, holy shit. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

And one of the most interesting items is the sweatshirt. Sweatshirt, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Because the police had only a hundred and thirty sweatshirts of that type had been sold in all of Japan before the crime.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

And only ten were sold in Tokyo.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Wow. And they didn't have a list of these people?

SPEAKER_00 23:52

No.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

That's weird, right? That's cra that's weird. That's like maybe this is because that doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't you be able to narrow that down at least?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Well, that is a possibility. If you uh if you buy something from me or for someone someone else, the cart that they will trace back is your cart, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah, but you'd still trace it back to me, and then I could tell you I gave it to someone, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

But if someone maybe gave it to someone else and so on and so forth. Well, we don't know.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

It could be something like that. Yeah, it's true.

unknown 24:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

But yeah, it was like narrowed down to oh, the police even know that ten of that t-shirt types were sold to t shirt.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Or it's just uh they do know who it is, and it's just a really powerful person, and they got away with it because they know the right people. Which is shitty but true. Often, you know?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Yeah. So, yeah, as I mentioned, um, I read the report and they said that the police later found the owner of one of those Tokio sold sweatshirts. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

But they were still looking for information about the uh other nine. And that sounds like that kind of clue that should solve a case as we have been thinking. But apparently it is not that simple. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Because the clothes can be borrowed, the clothes can be bought secondhand.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Mm-hmm. That's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Clothes can be given away. That's true. There's lots of t-shirt. Someone can wear something that's not originally theirs, you know. I like wearing your sh your t-shirts. I'm not getting additions. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

She wears my t-shirts all the time. Even though you drown in them. Because I'm literally more than twice your size.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

It's an S size, bro. It's like you some years ago.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Long time ago for me, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Okay, and that was also a hip back, right? So from the belt length of the hip back, uh police estimated the You mean like a fanny pack or something? Or do you call it fanny pack?

SPEAKER_01 25:52

I don't know. Was it like one of those things you put around your waist? Yes. And it's a bag that you clip on. Yeah. Yeah, people call those fanny packs. Fanny packs, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

So based on one of those.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Based on one of those, then the police could estimate the um size of the waist, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

And they said it's around uh 70 to 75 centimeters.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

And what's that in?

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Oh, you convert it yourself, bro.

unknown 26:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

I don't know. I'm just thinking like I should know this. I'm Canadian. We do use the metric system, but let's what was 70? You said 70 cm.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

70 to 75 centimeters.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Okay, so that's about 29 to 29 and a half inches.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

What's yours, do you know?

SPEAKER_01 26:42

36. Yeah. Okay. So mine's, yeah, I'm a lot bigger than this guy.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

So now we have more assumption about this uh person, this this murderer. And they were the athletic shoes too. Um, and the police page says they were Slesinger Slesinger shoes. I don't know. I have never heard that brand. Yeah. Um, and the size was 27.5 centimeters in Japanese sizing. And these shoes um were manufactured in South Korea.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Okay, so t you said 27.7.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

27.5 centimeters in Japanese sizing.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Okay, well, it's not that ancient has 10.8 inches. But again, like I don't know how to do it. 10.8.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yours is 10. No?

SPEAKER_01 27:32

I'm my my uh shoe size, 10 and a half, 11, depending on the brand. But this is but I don't know how those measurements are made. I don't know. I don't even know if ten and a half is ten and a half inches. Like I don't I think so, but I I don't know where they measure that from. Yeah, who knows?

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Yeah. But from all of this information based on the evidence, like the ways the um the waist and the shoes.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Yeah, shoe size. So please assume it was a man, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah, could make that assumption. And um the police uh say that okay, this is a man around 170 centimeters tall, and he's slim, possibly right-handed. Um and uh he got injured during the crime. Type A blood. Okay, but still, no name.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

No name. Type A blood too, that that does narrow it down because I I don't think type A is that common, is it? I don't know how many percent. Type A positive or negative?

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Oh, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Let's see.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Just combine.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yeah, okay, well, whatever. Percentage. I'm gonna look it up while you continue the story.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah. Okay. So now we hear blood that is DNA, that is fingerprints, that is clothing, right? Okay, case off. Nope. It is not.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Not at all.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

No. Because the evidence it's a match, as you said at the beginning. A fingerprint, it's a matching fingerprint. DNA, it's a matching person, or maybe relative. Um, a clothing item needs to be connected to somebody. And they had no clue about it. Shoe size can narrow things down as well, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Okay. Oh, I I do have something that about the type A blood though. How many are the things that you're doing? But it's actually very it depends on whether or not it's positive or negative. So apparently a positive, 30% of the population has this blood type, at least in America. And uh six percent has a negative. So if it was a negative, then it would have been very rare.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

But a positive, that's like a third of people. Crazy. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Okay. And another evidence left is the handkerchiefs. Okay. The official police page says that two black handkerchiefs were left at the crime scene. One had a cut in the middle about three centimeters long.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

But the police believe that the perpetrator may have let the knife run through that cut, so he could use the handkerchief as a fallback or grip. The other handkerchief was folded like a triangle, and police say it's possible that he used it as a mask. But I'm still very curious about why he left all of this.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Yeah, that doesn't really make much sense.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

But it's a very smart move, you know? Like he left a lot of evidence, uh, not get caught. That's not from my email, that's yours.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Yeah, uh yeah, that was me. Sorry. I can't mute mine though, because well, I guess I could turn the notifications on silent. That would have been smart, but whatever. Yeah. We're not pausing. Okay, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Okay, so I guess as um as what we have been thinking, the case becomes even more confusing, right? Because some parts feel like it's probably planned. The possible use of a mask, the handkerchief with the knife, um, all of those items, maybe some preparation. But the other parts could also sound a little bit chaotic because he got injured.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yep, that is true. That is true. I don't know. I mean, it it just sounds weird to me that there's so much evidence and it's like left behind and you carefully place something like that, and especially if you murdered the whole family, it's not like you ran out in a rush because someone was chasing you, or like there was I don't know, someone shooting at you that got, you know, that you couldn't kill or something like that. Like why leave all of that there? It almost seems like purposeful, like it was set up or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Doesn't it seem a little bit too care like too much evidence?

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Too much evidence, and uh they could not trace it back. That's the thing, right? If it's not planned, if they I mean they stayed in the house too. Oh no, sorry, not he not they. He stayed in the house after uh killing them.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

All the items he stayed in the house.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Yeah, but again, that's assuming that this whole thing wasn't just planned. Maybe they're trying to like get like maybe there was a reason for this mass murder that we don't know about. And that the person who's orchestrating the whole thing actually just um thought, hey, why don't we throw off the trail and just like put all of this evidence so it keeps people guessing and away from the reality, which you know could be some calculated plan. I mean, is as chaotic and messy as it sounds, it could be ironically the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Yeah, I know. Yeah, right? It's I think very well planned though, like with all of those.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Well, yeah, if that's the case. But I mean, I'm who knows, because it's still unsolved, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

So what do you what do you think the modif will be?

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Well, I don't I don't know. That's my best guess. There was no No, I don't know. Actually, if it was the person that did that, uh-huh. Um and they stuck around and you said there's no evidence that there was like that the person was freaking out or like doing things erratically, it was pretty careful and methodical. Yeah, I don't know. That that just sounds like either it was just random and the person knew they were going through the town and that they didn't ever link anything to them because maybe they're not even in the criminal system, and there was nothing that could possibly link them, so truly random, which is terrifying because you can't really do anything about that, or um, you know, the the less likely but kind of fun, and not fun, but you know what I mean. Uh more interesting one is that it was all orchestrated by some evil genius. I don't know. So what do you think? What's your theory?

SPEAKER_00 34:26

I don't know what the true motive is with all of those, or it's just maybe like personal uh anger or something to that family.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Towards the family, maybe someone jealous about you know, especially around the holiday time.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Maybe it's like, oh, this family was like, It could be a random person like that who's like, oh, I really need a family, and um I see that it's his family who seems so happy, and it is a random thing like that. Or maybe no, maybe it's uh someone who actually knew them.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Right, who's yeah also jealous.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yeah, like we don't we don't know.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

I do not have a strong theory about the motive.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Damn. Well that's crazy. That's uh that's a wild one. Damn.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

But do you think this case could still be solved though?

SPEAKER_01 35:15

I think so. I mean that was 20 five years ago that this case, you know, was closed, I guess, as a cold case.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

2026.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Because I mean, since the year 2000 or whenever it was actually um out, I mean that's that technology has come so far, and especially with mass media now, yeah, everyone has access to their phones and to different databases and different theories. And even us talking about this now, if any of the listeners heard something that we said and they were like, oh, it could be something like that. Maybe let's go off of this stupid crazy theory that John came up with, and there was some truth to it, and then people could work together. I mean, there's just so much more that can be done now that I think it's worth looking into for sure. I mean, let's get some justice for the people that, you know, unfortunately suffered a really tragic um you know, incident that's is horrible. Yeah. Damn.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Well, I think one th not one thing, but something that maybe is worth um looking into is not only getting evidence from inside the house, but maybe uh it's really difficult, right? Because they don't really have neighbors, but who knows that there are some strangers who could kind of see what's going on in the house before. Maybe they could find some clues like vehicles parked around.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Hmm. Yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Or maybe someone could see that a person got injured in hand.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

So yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It could be who knows. Who knows what what uh what information people have. But if anyone anyone does, I mean, hell. Um either shoot shoot the police a message or you know, send it to us and we'll forward it.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

So or maybe actually like the neighborhood at that time uh was pretty quiet because sometimes like in the um uh not Christmas Eve, it's New Year's, right? New Year's Eve. People go to the crowded um area, like going to the downtown. Um, and maybe that's the only family that at that time was celebrating the um New Year's Eve at home. So it was pretty sweet, and that's why he could stay inside the house for quiet something. We don't know.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

But anyway, who knows? And and we often we like to hope that you know the the police force and everyone involved is doing their best and they've like exhausted all options. But the truth of the matter is is that they're very busy often and they have lots of cases, and there's a possibility that they just didn't interview enough people. And they didn't, you know, they didn't follow up on certain leads that could have been followed up on.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

So well, that is still a possibility, but the Tokyo Metropolitan Police still lists a reward of up to 20 million yen for valuable information leading to the what's how much is 20 million yen? I don't know. You gotta convert that.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

You gotta give us context, bro.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

20 million yen.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Million yen. I don't know the exact um amount USD. Let's see. You know, that's about 126,000 USD dollars.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

That's a lot, yeah. And the police actually still uh list that reward even up to December 15, 2026. That's the official page. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Oh, so it's still ongoing.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

It's still ongoing. They're they're still looking for uh the person.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

So maybe like the murder if if it's young.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Let's say I think they have a theory between um 17 to 40 or something like that. Like the the age range of the person. Yeah, the age range of the person.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

You know, so what's that based off of?

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Do you know?

SPEAKER_00 39:20

That the the evidence that they found, like the ways, all the issues. They're just the scenes, probably.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Yeah, all that.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Yeah, so that's the case for today.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Tell me the crime, episode 13. Thank you very much. That was very interesting. All right, so um, next week we have me doing something that I am not aware of yet. So we will we'll see you next week. Tune in. Thank you.