In a murder case, a confession that includes a motive by the culprit is one of the most important elements in getting a conviction for the prosecution. However, equally crucial is the existence of a corpse.
In the killing of Tatsunari Ito in the Nishi Kawaguchi red-light district of Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture in 2016, prosecutors did not have a body, because the perpetrators had dismembered and burned it.
The destruction of the corpse also delayed the discovery of the case by law enforcement by several years. The result was six of the seven perpetrators not being prosecuted for a crime since the statute of limitations on destruction and abandonment of a corpse had expired.
The lone defendant to face charges was Kazuharu Shimada, a one-time member of the Yamaguchi-gumi criminal syndicate, who was convicted of murder in 2022.
In getting that conviction, the prosecution may not have been able to rely on the existence of a corpse but they did have smartphone video of the incident as shot by the perpetrators.
Shukan Bunshun (Dec. 2022) was present in the courtroom for the trial proceedings at the end of 2022. Based on the reporting of the weekly tabloid, the assault of Ito was prolonged and gruesome. In the third installment (parts one and two are here and here, The Tokyo Reporter editorial team presents in shocking detail what Shimada told the court.
Someone else did it
The incident, which took place in Hawaiian Bar Lapule, was recorded on videos left on the smartphones of those who were in the establishment over the night of March 17, 2016 and the following morning.
The named perpetrators are Shimada and Junya Motohashi, the owner of Lapule. The five others — including Motohashi’s girlfriend, his driver and three unnamed henchmen — were not identified. (As previously reported, Motohashi later killed himself after his arrest in 2021.)
At the trial, Shimada, then aged 55, admitted to the assault of Ito and the mutilation and abandonment of his body, two charges which he was not accused of. However, he denied committing murder, which he was indicted for. “I did not do it,” he said, as Bunshun reports.
Ito, aged 24 at the time, at one point had been dating the daughter of Shimada. As previously reported, the apparent motive for the crime was Ito’s use of a smartphone provided to him by Shimada after he had cut off a relationship with the daughter and allegations that he had been swindling customers at Lapule.
Shimada’s defense lawyer argued, “The statements of those involved at the investigation stage and the trial stage differ greatly,” implying that persons other than Shimada had colluded to cover up the truth, and that it was someone else who killed Ito.
The prosecution claimed otherwise.
Set his head on fire
The assault of Ito began after Motohashi called Shimada to the bar that night. They first dragged him into the bathroom and assaulted him. They then pulled him to the main floor of the bar.
As Ito pleaded with them to stop, Shimada lit his penis with a lighter, then poured alcohol over his head, which Motohashi set on fire, causing his head to burst into flames.
According to the prosecutor’s explanation of evidence, one video recorded Ito’s screaming voice, “It’s hot, it’s hot!” As well, there were cheers of “Ohhh!” and chants of “Fire, fire!” from those in the bar.
Next, Motohashi stomped on Ito’s writhing head, and Shimada, holding a razor, shaved his hair and eyebrows. He then sprayed the same liquid around his genital area and set him on fire again.
As the assault continued, Ito begged for forgiveness. Motohashi then demanded that he masturbate. With others in the bar present, Ito began masturbating, and Shimada began a countdown. Ito, who continued to plead for them to stop, even stuck one of his fingers in a plastic bottle and tried to break it.
“An unreasonable side”
During the trial, Shimada explained the relationships of the people who had gathered at the bar that evening. This included Motohashi, according to Bunshun.
“Motohashi had a lot of good points from my perspective, but he also had an unreasonable side that made him do outrageous things,” he said. “He was violent towards young girls that he loved. He used drugs a lot. When I arrived at the bar, there were [the three henchmen] there, and they were following what Motohashi said, so I realized that they were Motohashi’s ‘young men.’ As far as I can tell, either then or afterwards, I never saw the three refusing to do what Motohashi said. One of them used kakuseizai (methamphetamine) with Motohashi. He also sold [that drug] for profit.”
Shimada said he went to the bar because “as far as I remember, Motohashi called me.”
The defendant told the court: “It was late at night and he said, ‘I have something important to tell you, so please come.’ It took about an hour to get to the bar from my house. Motohashi, his associates, and the victim were there at the time, and they were all yelling and making noise.”
According to Shimada, they were talking about Ito stealing money from customers. “That’s when he called me,” the defendant said, “and when I asked what they were talking about, that’s when they first mentioned [my] daughter’s smartphone.”
“Standing there naked”
Shimada was once a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi. At the time of the incident, he had work at a regular job scheduled to start early on March 18. At one point during the assault, he left Lapule, contacted someone from his company, gave them instructions on the work to be done in the morning, and returned to the bar.
“[Ito] was already standing there naked,” Shimada testified. “Motohashi was kicking [him]. His girlfriend was complaining about all sorts of things. She was saying things like, ‘You’re using women as toys,’ ‘You’re tricking women and using violence on them for carnal purposes,’ ‘You’re the enemy of women,’ and she seemed excited…No one stopped her. Hearing her excited words, I thought about my own daughter and got excited, and I joined in.”
Bunshun goes on to say that at one point Shimada said Ito was made to sit on the toilet seat while tied up with a rope. They also fed him sleeping pills. “I can’t say who it was, but someone brought a rope from somewhere and tied up [Ito]. It wasn’t me, but I can’t say [who it was] here.” Shimada said.
His lawyer asked, “Was it Motohashi or one of the younger men who was ordered by Motohashi?” Shimada said, “Probably someone under Motohashi, who gives orders but doesn’t do anything.”
After tying up the victim, everyone in the bar, including Motohashi, went out to eat. Shimada said, “I didn’t feel like going out to eat with everyone in this situation.” So, he stayed in the bar alone.
Motohashi returned a while later and ordered his underlings to bring Ito back to the floor. “You’re going to a gay bar now, you’re going to get your ass handed to you,” Motohashi declared.
At this point, Shimada felt that Motohashi’s behavior had changed due to his use of methamphetamine.
“He had calmed down at the time,” Shimada said. “But then I realized that he had been using drugs. So I went to [Ito] and told him to be quiet and not make a fuss, and told the younger guys to keep quiet. I called Motohashi into a booth and started talking to him.”
They concluded that if they let Ito go he would run to the police.
Chanted a Buddhist prayer
Motohashi then approached Ito and started to push him. Ito then said loudly, “Please stop, I won’t run away.” Thinking Motohashi would get excited again, Shimada put duct tape over the victim’s mouth. “I told you to be quiet,” he said.
Motohashi resumed the violence. “I thought [the assault] had started again,” Shimada said, “so I turned my back on the victim and played with my cell phone.”
As for the actual murder, Shimada said, “I saw [one of the henchmen] doing something on the orders of Motohashi, straddling [Ito]. Behind him, Motohashi was standing on the victim. He was doing something unseemly. I can’t remember at what stage it was, but Motohashi was also strangling the victim.”
He added, “I didn’t try to stop Motohashi because it would make him even more excited.”
Shimada said that in the end, Motohashi and his subordinates killed the victim, and that he was not involved.
The prosecution told a different version. They claimed it was Shimada who put a rope around Ito’s neck and strangled him with both hands. He then put his weight on the victim’s face and stomped on him with his shoe.
During the killing, Motohashi held Ito’s body and chanted a Buddhist prayer, the prosecution concluded.
What are you going to do?
After the murder, Shimada talked to Motohashi in the same booth. With his mind blank and nearly unable to speak, he managed to say, “This is no joke, what are you going to do?”
Then, during the conversation, Motohashi asked, “Can you mince [Ito] at the negitoro factory owned by your relative?”
“I can’t do that,” Shimada responded. But Motohashi persisted. “Can’t you leave [Ito] in the company freezer?” he asked.
“I’ll do something about it within a day or two,” Shimada finally said.
The players > The victim > The smartphones > The witnesses > The verdict
