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Nascent Drama

Several days later, on November 3, 1989, several Aum Shinrikyo members, including Hideo Murai, chief scientist, Satoro Hashimoto, a martial arts master, and Tomomasa Nakagawa, drove to Yokohama, where Sakamoto lived. They carried a pouch with 14 hypodermic syringes and a supply of potassium chloride. According to court testimony provided by the perpetrators later, they planned to use the chemical substance to kidnap Sakamoto from Yokohama's Shinkansen train station, but, contrary to expectations, he did not show up--it was a holiday (Bunka no hi, or "Culture Day"), so he slept in with his family, at home.
 
At 3 A.M., the group entered Sakamoto's apartment through an unlocked door. Tsutsumi Sakamoto was struck on the head with a hammer. His wife, Satoko Sakamoto (坂本都子 Sakamoto Satoko, 29 years old), was beaten. Their infant son Tatsuhiko Sakamoto (坂本竜彦 Sakamoto Tatsuhiko, 14 months old), was injected with the potassium chloride and then his face was covered with a cloth. While the two adults struggled, they were also injected with the potassium chloride. Satoko died from the poison, but Tsutsumi Sakamoto did not die as quickly of the injection, and died of strangulation. The family's remains were placed in metal drums and hidden in three separate rural areas. Their bed-sheets were burned and the tools were dropped in the ocean. The victims' teeth were smashed to frustrate identification. Their bodies were not found until the perpetrators revealed the locations after they were captured.
 
Evidence of Aum Shinrikyo's involvement in the murders was uncovered six years later, after a number of senior followers were arrested on other charges, most notably in connection with the Tokyo subway gas attack. All of those implicated in the Sakamoto murders have received death sentences. The court found that the murder was committed by order of the group's founder, Shoko Asahara, although not all of the perpetrators testified to this effect, and Asahara continues to deny involvement. Asahara's legal team claims that blaming him is an attempt to shift personal responsibility to a higher authority.
 
The motive for the murder is not certain: Background information on Sakamoto's legal practice contradicts the 'blood test' theory, according to which Asahara ordered the murder to prevent the disclosure of his blood test that showed no special substance in his blood. A second theory is that the murder was designed to intimidate lawyers and plaintiffs, and end the potentially financially crippling lawsuit against Aum.
 
Whether Sakamoto's death changed the legal climate around Aum Shinrikyo is a matter of debate. No more class-action lawsuits were filed against it in the six years following the murders. Individual unfavourable rulings have harmed the group financially to a lesser degree.
 
Aleph, a successor group to Aum Shinrikyo, condemned the above described atrocities in 1999 and announced a change in its policies, including the establishment of a special compensations fund. Members involved in incidents such as the Sakamoto family murders are not permitted to join Aleph and are referred to as "ex-members" by the group.
 
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Tsutomu Miyazaki (宮﨑 勤, Miyazaki Tsutomu?, August 21, 1962–June 17, 2008), also known as The Otaku Murderer, The Little Girl Murderer, and Dracula, was a Japanese serial killer.
 
Miyazaki's premature birth left him with deformed hands, which were permanently gnarled and fused directly to the wrists, necessitating him to move his entire forearm in order to rotate the hand.
 
Due to his deformity, he was ostracized when he attended Itsukaichi Elementary School, and consequently kept to himself. Although he was originally a star student, his grades at Meidai Nakano High School dropped dramatically; he had a class rank of 40 out of 56 and did not receive the customary admission to Meiji University. Instead of studying English and becoming a teacher as he originally intended, he attended a local junior college, studying to become a photo-technician.
 
Between 1988 and 1989, Miyazaki mutilated and killed four girls, ages four to seven; he then sexually molested their corpses. He drank the blood of one victim and ate her hand.
 
During the day, Miyazaki was a mild-mannered employee. In his own time, he selected children to kill randomly. He terrorized the families of his victims, sending them letters recalling in graphic detail what he had done to their children. To the family of victim Erika Nanba, Miyazaki sent a morbid postcard assembled using words cut out of magazines, spelling out: "Erika. Cold. Cough. Throat. Rest. Death."
 
He allowed the corpse of his first victim, Mari Konno, to decompose in the hills near his home, then chopped off the hands and feet, which he kept in his closet, and which were recovered upon his arrest. He charred the remaining bones in his furnace, ground them into powder, and sent them to her family in a box, along with several of her teeth, photos of her clothes, and a postcard reading: "Mari. Cremated. Bones. Investigate. Prove."
 
Police found that the families of the victims had something else in common: they had all been bothered by strange phone calls. The phone would ring, but when answered, the person on the other end (presumably Miyazaki) would say nothing; if they didn't pick it up, the phone would sometimes ring for upwards of 20 minutes.
 
On July 23, 1989, Miyazaki, while attempting to insert a zoom lens into the vagina of a grade school-aged girl in a park near her home, was attacked by the girl's father. Miyazaki fled on foot, but returned to the park to retrieve his car, whereupon he was promptly arrested.
 
A police search of his two-room bungalow turned up a collection of 5,763 videotapes, some containing pornographic anime and slasher films. Interspersed among them was video footage and pictures of his victims. He was also reported to be a fan of horror films and have an extensive collection from this genre. The centerpieces of his collection were the first five Guinea Pig films; he reportedly used the second film in the series, titled Flower of Flesh and Blood, as a template for one of his killings. Miyazaki, who retained a perpetually calm and collected demeanor during his trial, appeared indifferent to his capture.
 
In 1989, he became to be known as "The Otaku Murderer". His bizarre murders fueled a moral panic against otaku. However, the reports of him were disputed. For example, Miyazaki was suspected to have many pornographic videos, but Eiji Otsuka suspected in his book that it was the forgery by a photographer, because people wanted to understand Miyazaki under their sense of values.
 
On the other hand, Fumiya Icihashi suspected a part of stereotypes about Miyazaki as the information manipulation of the police because the police wanted to convict Miyazaki for the serial murders
 
Following his son's arrest, Miyazaki's father, who had refused to pay for his legal defense, committed suicide in 1994.
 
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