Chapter 6 second quarter

I took the Shinkansen Yamabiko from Tokyo Station. I don't know if it was a Sunday, but it was quite crowded.There are a lot of passengers with their families in the unreserved seats. I try not to look at their happy chatting. I just sit in the window seat and look at the scenery.The sun is shining outside, and the streets, fields, and riverbanks are infinitely peaceful. What am I doing?What do you want to do next? The ones found under the name of S are almost all websites that search for strange cases.There is also a website that publishes reports and weekly magazine pages at the time of the incident in PDF format, allowing me to have a more detailed understanding of S's life and crimes.It seemed to be a fairly well-known case among those interested in that line.

The information I know so far is as follows: S was born in Tanghu Village, Fukushima Prefecture in the 22nd year of Showa. His mother died when he was young, and he was raised by his father and grandmother who worked in a Tsukudani factory.His father was ordinary in appearance, but S was recognized as a handsome man no matter in elementary or middle school.People in the local area said that he probably inherited his beauty from his beautiful mother. In Showa 38, when S was sixteen years old, his father was seriously injured above his knees due to an explosion caused by a mistake in operating the boiler. He could no longer stand and work, so he had to resign.After recovering from the injury, although he could barely walk, he couldn't find a job.At that time, the laws protecting the right to work of the handicapped were not as complete as they are today, and laborers with physical disabilities were unwelcome after all, and the life of the S family of three fell into difficulties.

However, in the autumn of this year, luck came.Because his father was going to remarry, and the target was Y son, the only daughter of a local prominent family who got rich from buying and selling Huijin cattle.The daughter wanted to marry a man with children but no career. The parents were very opposed at first, but considering that the daughter was in her early thirties, they finally agreed.Now that he has given recognition, he is worthy of being a noble family, and even built a new house for the new family. S, grandmother, father and son lived in the single-family bungalow.At that time, my grandmother was very old. Although she was not seriously ill, her body was gradually losing control.

Two years later, in Showa 40, a baby girl, S's half-sister, was born between the couple.The case happened about a week after the baby was born.On a Sunday at the end of February, the whole world was talking about the US bombing of Vietnam, but this cold village in Fukushima Prefecture was buried in waist-deep snow and was silent. It was a plasterer who was nearly thirty years old who discovered the miserable state of S's house.He is the heir of the small builder who undertook the new house construction project, and he used to visit the wife's natal family often. Because of the heavy snowfall the night before, the plasterer decided to help clear the snow from the roof, so he went to S's house with a shovel.It was around ten o'clock in the morning. He first knocked on the sliding door of the entrance, but no one answered, and the door was locked.And there were no footprints on the fresh snow between the entrance and the gate. He felt that something was wrong, because no footprints meant that he had never gone out.He went around the yard at the back of the house looking for someone, and finally saw S from the living room window. S sat on the ground blankly, holding a kitchen knife close to his neck.The plasterer hastily jumped onto the porch and slapped the windows. S caught a glimpse of him, and immediately put the kitchen knife against his neck.Almost at the same time, the plasterer broke the window with a shovel and rushed into the room to stop S.When he snatched the kitchen knife from S, he realized that S's white sweater and jeans had been dyed red in large swaths.He thought that S had stabbed his neck, but there was no wound on S.He pressed S for the reason, but S kept silent and refused to answer.

The plasterer looked around the house. S's grandmother was still sitting on the kotatsu with her lower body, fell on her back and died with her throat cut.Walking out of the living room to see, the woman was strangled to death in the middle of the corridor.Beside the porch, the chest of S's father's single shirt was covered with blood, and he had already passed away.For unknown reasons, a large amount of blood flowed from the lower abdomen of the body, and there was a puddle of chopped red unknown objects beside it. The plasterer thought of the newborn baby and immediately looked around.The baby was lying on the blanket in the couple's bedroom. Although it was still alive, a pair of bloody handprints remained on the thin neck.According to S's confession afterwards, he wanted to kill the baby, but he hesitated, and he couldn't do it no matter what.The plasterer reported the incident on his home phone, and the police arrived immediately.During this period, S stood there in a daze.

According to the police investigation, the order of S's murder seems to be grandmother, son-in-law, and father. When he wanted to kill his sister, he stopped temporarily and was about to commit suicide when he was discovered by a plasterer.As for the reason for committing the crime, S, who was arrested, said that "I usually don't get along with my family", without further explanation. What the media is most interested in is what S did to his father's body.He not only cut off a part of his biological father, but also destroyed it with a kitchen knife.Regarding this point, S only kept repeating words such as "don't know" and "don't remember" to the lawyer.

S was sentenced to life imprisonment.At that time, the criminal law contained provisions on "killing a respected relative", which clearly stipulated that "those who kill themselves or their spouse's immediate relatives shall be sentenced to death or life imprisonment", so S's punishment was one of the two.Considering that S is only eighteen years old, the judge's decision not to choose the death penalty is probably an appropriate sentence.Today, this provision has been removed from the penal code.Although it is the killing of a respected relative, there are various reasons behind the case, and some of them have to be sentenced with discretion. Therefore, this criminal law was revised in Heisei 7 (1995).

As a result, S went to prison to serve an endless sentence.The message on the leg of the chair must have been engraved at this time. The baby whose life was saved, that is, the "sister" who was the subject of S's message, was adopted by Y's natal family. In the winter of Showa 45, serving his fifth year in prison, S committed suicide in prison.He chose to hang his underwear on the iron grid around his neck in the middle of the night when there were fewer guards, and hanged himself to death. I grabbed the backpack by my feet and checked the feel inside.Are the three sentences engraved on the round and stiff chair legs the last words of S? Did S take advantage of the prison guard's inattention, leave a suicide note in a place where no one would see it, and then hang himself?

I don't know which child suddenly sneezed.A man said something, and the woman laughed softly.