People Who Eat Darkness

by Richard Lloyd Parry

  Tim gave an interview to a British Sunday tabloid: Katy Weitz, “Why I Must Find Lucie,” Sunday People, September 17, 2000.

  DIGNITY OF THE POLICE

  On the Japanese police and prosecutors, I have consulted Walter L. Ames, Police and Community in Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981); David H. Bayley, Forces of Order: Policing Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); David T. Johnson, The Japanese Way of Justice: Prosecuting Crime in Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Setsuo Miyazawa, Policing in Japan: A Study on Making Crime (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992); and L. Craig Parker Jr., The Japanese Police System Today: An American Perspective (New York: Kodansha, 1984).

  Christabel Mackenzie had come to Tokyo: As well as her name, biographical details about Christabel Mackenzie have been altered to conceal her identity.

  On the face of it, they are astonishingly and uniquely successful: On Japanese crime rates, see Johnson, Japanese Way of Justice, pp. 22–23.

  the Japanese police were facing their most vociferous criticism: Quotations from Naoki Inose, “Japanese Police Must Lift Shroud of Secrecy,” Daily Yomiuri, September 20, 1999; and Doug Struck, “Japan’s Police Wear Tarnished Badge of Honor: Reputation of Once-Admired Constables Plummets with the Rise of Scandals and Corruption,” Washington Post, March 3, 2000.

  “There are so many, though”: Jonathan Watts, Guardian, July 11, 2000.

  Almost two weeks after Lucie’s disappearance: Interview with Superintendent Toshihiko Mii, Azabu Police Station; and Richard Lloyd Parry, “Free Her Now, Father Urges Tokyo Captor,” Independent on Sunday, July 16, 2000.

  THE PALM TREES BY THE SEA

  Clara, Isobel, Charmaine, Ronia, Katie, Lana, and Tanya are all references to actual women, based on interviews and court documents. All names, and in some cases nationalities, have been changed.

  a young American woman named Katie Vickers: The account of “Katie Vickers” is based on an interview with “Kai Miyazawa”; opening statement by Tokyo Public Prosecutors, December 2000; and correspondence with “Katie Vickers.”

  there was only a single sex offender: Interview with Toshiaki Udo; “Alleged Rapist of Foreigners Fined for Obscenity in 1998,” Kyodo News, October 30, 2000; Rushii jiken shinritsu kyumeihan, Rushii jiken shinritsu [Team seeking the truth about the Lucie case, The Truth About the Lucie Case] (Tokyo: Asaka Shinsha, 2007), p. 757.

  he had been arrested for peeping: Opening statement of supplementary indictment submitted to the Tokyo District Court by the Tokyo District Prosecutor’s Office, April 27, 2001. The relevant section reads, “In addition to having a previous record of violating the Minor Offenses Act for peeping into a ladies’ toilet, the defendant also has a previous record of violating the Minor Offenses Act and being subject to a 9,000-yen fine for peeping at a woman going to the toilet in a public lavatory, using a handy camera on October 12, 1998.”

  “He was half naked”: Testimony by Naoki Harada in the Tokyo District Court, December 25, 2003; Richard Lloyd Parry, “Blackman Suspect Had Her Severed Head, Say Police,” The Times, December 26, 2003.

  THE WEAK AND THE STRONG

  His elderly mother was said to possess: Information from a source close to the Kim/Hoshiyama family, Osaka, July 2006.

  Obara shunned photographers: “Cops: Obara Hid Identity with Dozens of Aliases,” Daily Yomiuri, November 20, 2000.

  As far back as the sixteenth century: My account of Japan’s colonization of Korea, the lives of Koreans in Japan, and the postwar period draws on Changsoo Lee and George De Vos, eds., Koreans in Japan: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981); Yasunori Fukuoka, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2000); John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: Norton, 1999); Peter B. E. Hill, The Japanese Mafia: Yakuza, Law, and the State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), and David Kaplan and Alec Dubro, Yakuza: The Explosive Account of Japan’s Criminal Underworld (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1986).

  “they shouted, ‘Korean!’”: Quoted in Lee and de Vos, Koreans in Japan, p. 22.

  near the port city of Pusan: Information from a source close to the Kim/Hoshiyama family, Osaka, July 2006.

  They came to Japan before the war: Ibid.

  According to one of his sons: Conversation with Eisho Kin, Osaka, July 4, 2007.

  He had no criminal record: According to a Japanese newspaper reporter in Osaka, who received the information from contacts in the Osaka police.

  a bizarre book: The Truth About the Lucie Case. See p. 385 and pp. 448–49 for a fuller account of this book and its origins.

  founded in emulation of a British public school: Interview with Shingo Nishimura.

  a short story of his was published: Eisho Kin, “Aru Hi no Koto” (It Happened One Day), Sanzenri, Tokyo/Osaka, Winter 1977.

  Koji Akimoto is a pseudonym.

  an account commissioned by Joji Obara’s lawyer: From The Truth About the Lucie Case, p. 753.

  GEORGE O’HARA

  “Confession is king”: Johnson, Japanese Way of Justice, p. 158. The chapter (pp. 243–75) on the role of confessions in Japanese justice, and the ways they are obtained, is fascinating and chilling.

  “We require proof beyond an unreasonable doubt”: Ibid., p. 237.

  “confessions are the heart—the pump”: Ibid., p. 243.

  “To us Japanese, hitting in the head is not serious”: Ibid., p. 255.

  Udo was reluctant to go into detail: Superintendent Udo was not personally present during Obara’s interrogation, which was supervised by Detective Yamashiro.

  Obara himself would insist: Letter to the author from Shinya Sakane, lawyer representing Joji Obara, September 14, 2005.

  But other people sensed something mysterious: Information about the death, funeral, and disposal of the estate of Kim Kyo Hak is drawn from public documents on the Kim/Hoshiyama family companies; interviews with neighbors of the Kim/Hoshiyama family in Kitabatake, July 2007; interviews with a source close to the Kim/Hoshiyama family, Osaka, May 2006; articles in the magazines Shukan Bunshun, February 22, 2001, and Shukan Josei, November 21, 2001; and Tokyo Public Prosecutors’ indictment of Joji Obara, December 14, 2000.

  Japanese magazines: The suggestion that Obara’s father’s death was connected in any way with the underworld was denied by Shinya Sakane in his letter on behalf of Joji Obara.

  “Glass pieces were taken out around his eyes,”: From The Truth About the Lucie Case, p. 753.

  He may have studied architecture: Interview with a person close to the Kim family.

  another explanation: Interview with a person close to the Kim family.

  With one of his Osaka car parks as collateral: Information on Obara’s business activities comes from a list of companies provided to the media by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police; from public documents on those companies; from interviews with people close to the case; and from “Obara Hid Identity with Dozens of Aliases,” Daily Yomiuri, November 20, 2000, and “Blackman Suspect Obara Threw Nothing Away, Even Evidence,” Kyodo News, February 16, 2001.

  not all of those listed on these company documents: “Obara Hid Identity with Dozens of Aliases,” Daily Yomiuri, November 20, 2000.

  Later, Obara would claim that Hamaguchi: From The Truth About the Lucie Case, p. 758. He is referred to there as “Lawyer H.”

  CONQUEST PLAY

  Joji Obara kept meticulous records of his sexual encounters: “Statement of Reasons for Appeal,” Number 1294, 2007, Tokyo Public Prosecutors, pp. 68–69.

  He referred to the flat at Zushi Marina as his kyoten: Ibid., p. 71.

  a list of about sixty women’s names: “Obara Hid Identity with Dozens of Aliases,” Daily Yomiuri, November 20, 2000.

  “Is it for a big dog that’s passed away?”: Interview with Wataru Fujisaki.

  “The defendant lists the names of the women”: “Statement of Reasons for Appeal,” Number 1294, pp. 69–70.


  “He does various things”: Based on interviews with Toshiaki Udo and two other people who had seen the dossier of still images.

  Off camera there were two television monitors: Testimony of Joji Obara in the Tokyo District Court, March 8, 2006.

  One report said that the police had recovered a thousand of them: “Obara Indicted over 1992 Death of Australian Woman,” Kyodo News, February 16, 2001, and “Police View 4,800 Videos from Obara’s Condominium,” Daily Yomiuri, April 10, 2001.

  “With a Japanese girl, my preference”: Testimony of Joji Obara in the Tokyo District Court, March 8, 2006.

  “Foreign hostesses are all ugly”: Ibid.

  “Before his ‘play’ the accused pours into a small shot glass”: From the website The Truth of Lucie’s Case, http://lucies-case.to.cx/case1_e.html, accessed June 2010.

  Fusako Yoshimoto, Itsuko Oshihara, and Megumi Mori are pseudonyms.

  “Something serious has happened”: “Photograph Links Obara to Blackman,” Daily Yomiuri, February 17, 2001.

  CARITA

  “Fears of More Missing Women”: Sydney Morning Herald, October 27, 2000.

  IN THE CAVE

  “We go after him relentlessly”: Mainichi Daily News, February 20, 2001.

  Mr. Hirokawa, the caretaker’s boyfriend”: The judge in the first trial discounted his testimony as unreliable.

  They were immediately identifiable as a human arm: The details of the exhumation are from personal observation, contemporary press reports, and notes provided to me of a briefing to members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Agency reporters’ club on February 9, 2001.

  Six times that weekend: These details come from notes provided to me from Tokyo Metropolitan Police briefings on February 9, 10, and 11, 2001, and an interview with a former member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Agency reporters’ club.

  The most memorable explanation of all: Notes on a briefing to members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police reporters’ club by a detective of the First Investigation Division, April 9, 2001.

  “The detectives had been to Blue Sea Aburatsubo”: Interview, 2007.

  “the postmortem changes were extreme”: Assessment by Dr. Masahiko Ueno, February 7, 2006, on the postmortem conducted on February 10, 2001, by Dr. Masahiko Kobayashi.

  CEREMONIES

  Lucie’s funeral was at the end of April 2001: Accounts of Lucie’s funeral are from interviews with her family and friends, and from contemporary press reports, including William Hollingworth, “Family, Friends Say Goodbye to Murdered British Hostess Lucie,” Kyodo News, March 29, 2001.

  One thing stands out above all: Data on Japanese conviction rates are from Johnson, Japanese Way of Justice, pp. 62, 216. Johnson writes, “Even in an unusually ‘good’ year for defendants, only one in 265 cases ended in acquittal. Typically the proportion is closer to one in 800 … It would take Japanese judges 175 years to acquit as many defendants as American courts acquit in one year.”

  “Prosecutors, like just about everyone in Japan”: Ibid., p. 165.

  “The vast majority of Japan’s criminal trials”: Ibid., p. 47.

  “I’ve done something terrible”: “Photograph Links Obara to Blackman,” Daily Yomiuri, February 17, 2001; “50th Hearing of Joji OBARA,” English summary of court proceedings prepared by Tokyo Metropolitan Police, December 24, 2006.

  a doctor gave evidence on the poisonous effects of chloroform: Trial of Joji Obara, 13th hearing, Tokyo District Court, January 22, 2003.

  In April, an expert on anesthesia: 17th hearing, April 16, 2003.

  The caretaker of Blue Sea Aburatsubo: 25th hearing, November 27, 2003.

  the police inspector who had responded to her call: 26th hearing, December 25, 2003.

  A police chemist testified: 28th and 29th hearings, January 30 and February 17, 2004.

  A woman named Yuka Takino: 31st hearing, March 26, 2004.

  This experiment, a bizarre and gory operation: 32nd hearing, May 25, 2004.

  “I like the Obara hearings very much”: Yuki Takahashi, Miki Takigawa, Rei Hasegawa, and Haruko Kagami, Kasumikko Kurabu: Musume-tachi no Saiban Bōchōki (Kasumi Kids’ Club: Girls’ Diary of Court Watching) (Tokyo, 2006).

  He treated his defense as a war: Information on Joji Obara in the Tokyo Detention Center, on his relations with his lawyers, and on his legal affairs are from interviews with members of his defense team and people close to the case. See also Richard Lloyd Parry, “How the Bubble Burst for Lucie’s Alleged Killer,” The Times, August 17, 2005.

  His first legal team resigned en masse: “All Defense Lawyers for Obara in Blackman Case Resign,” Kyodo News, October 12, 2001.

  THE WHATEVERER

  “There are many fundamentals”: Letter to the author from Tomonori Sugo, lawyer representing Joji Obara, received July 8, 2005.

  My fifth question: Letter from the author to Joji Obara, June 23, 2005.

  “To tell the truth about Lucie’s character”: 42nd hearing, July 27, 2005.

  “What’s the significance of buying postcards and drugs?”: Ibid.

  “When Obara asked A,” it would later be explained: From The Truth About the Lucie Case, p. 293.

  the inspector had inadvertently kicked the blanket-wrapped corpse: Ibid., p. 300.

  He was “surprised,” according to the book: Ibid., p. 301.

  “She’s having fun taking drugs”: Ibid., p. 303.

  His name was Satoru Katsuta: Information on Katsuta is from the trial of Joji Obara, 47th hearing, Tokyo District Court, December 22, 2005.

  SMYK

  Obara’s lawyers attempted to shore up his defense: The examples that follow are from the 49th, 50th, and 51st trial hearings, February 8 and 24, and March 8, 2006. The exchange about Obara’s charitable activities occurred in the 51st hearing.

  Then, in March 2006: 52nd hearing, March 2, 2006.

  Jane Blackman, Tim Blackman, and Carita Ridgway’s mother, Annette, flew out: They appeared at the 53rd and 54th hearings on April 20 and 25, 2006.

  CONDOLENCE

  “I have received the offer from the accused”: E-mail reprinted in The Truth About the Lucie Case, p. 73.

  “The accused has shown contrition”: E-mail reprinted in ibid., p. 75.

  He explained in a telephone call: Transcript of telephone conversation, ibid., pp. 78–79.

  “The terrible, terrible acts played out on my beautiful girl”: 54th hearing, April 25, 2006.

  “In cases of this kind, ¥1.5 million”: Johnson, Japanese Way of Justice, p. 202.

  “I did not know that the cause of death of my daughter”: In The Truth About the Lucie Case, p. 97.

  “blood money”: Glen Owen, “Now Father of Murdered Lucie Accepts £450,000 ‘Blood Money,’” Mail on Sunday, October 1, 2006.

  “I have rejected all and any payments”: Natalie Clarke and Neil Sears, “An Utter Betrayal of My Dear Lucie,” Daily Mail, October 2, 2006.

  a two-thousand-word character assassination: “A Father’s Betrayal,” Daily Mail, October 7, 2006.

  an on-the-record interview to the Mail: Kathryn Knight, “He Is Immoral,” Daily Mail, April 23, 2007.

  e-mailed one journalist: Roger Steare to Indira Das-Gupta, May 17, 2007.

  the information found its way to the Daily Mail: Daniel Boffey, “Lucie’s Father in Trust Fraud Probe,” Mail on Sunday, April 29, 2007.

  THE VERDICT

  I sent repeated letters through his lawyers: Author to Joji Obara, January 25 and June 23, 2005, February 23, 2006, and October 27, 2008; to Tomonori Sugo, lawyer to Joji Obara, July 8 and 20, 2005; to Shinya Sakane, lawyer to Joji Obara, November 17, 2005; and to Akira Tsujishima, lawyer to Joji Obara, December 5, 2008.

  asking me to get hold of Lucie’s health records: Letter to the author from Tomonori Sugo, lawyer to Joji Obara, July 19, 2005.

  he accused me of “delivering copies to Scotland Yard”: Letter from Kiyohisa Arai, lawyer to Joji Obara, May 17, 2006.

  Obara’s lawyer Shinya Sa
kane wrote indignantly: Shinya Sakane to the author, November 14, 2005.

  “There is no decisive evidence”: 61st hearing, December 11, 2006.

  one of his lawyers had hired British private detectives: Jason Lewis, “Lucie Murder Suspect and a Sinister Plot to Smear Her,” Mail on Sunday, May 13, 2007.

  a website materialized in cyberspace: http://lucies-case.to.cx. The English version of the website is at http://lucies-case.to.cx/index_e.html.

  publication of The Truth About the Lucie Case: In February 2010, the publisher of The Truth About the Lucie Case, Asuka Shinsha, sued Joji Obara and his lawyer Akira Tsujishima for ¥13,146,481 (at that time about $148,000) in unpaid fees. According to the complaint filed with that court, the book was a vanity publication, “part of a campaign to give an advantage to Obara.” It was commissioned in December 2006, soon after the judges in the Tokyo District Court withdrew to consider their judgment. As well as the Japanese edition, there was to have been an English translation published in Britain. The agreement signed with the publisher was in the name of the “Team Seeking the Truth About the Lucie Case,” and their agent, Obara’s lawyer, Kiyohisa Arai.

  On the face of it, then, the book was the work of independent third parties campaigning on Obara’s behalf. “The truth seekers,” the book explains, “are composed of persons such as journalists, law school staff and members of the legal community, including former prosecutors” (p. 31). But there seems to have been no one working on the project who was not paid to do so. Asuka Shinsha and Yorishige Fujita, the freelance editor responsible for the book, received their instructions from lawyers employed by Joji Obara.

  “In order to pretend that the campaign is a neutral activity, the defendants pretend that those in charge of the campaign are a specific organisation composed of third parties,” the publisher’s complaint reads. “But needless to say, the truth seekers are neither a corporate body with a judicial personality, nor … an unincorporated association. In reality, they are no more than individuals, such as the defendants.”