Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. In 2011, a police officer spotted a woman on a busy street in Japan, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
He looked at a photo on his phone and then back at this woman and thought, yeah, that's definitely her.
He'd been tasked with finding this woman and bringing her back home.
It was a pretty basic task, but he'd managed to complete it way faster than he thought he would.
The officer rushed down the street, greeted the woman, and she confirmed that yes, she was the person he was looking for.
So he led her back to his car, drove her back home, and that was that.
However, what the officer could not have possibly imagined was that locating this woman and taking her home was about to unravel 25 years of unimaginable horrors and lead to one of the most bizarre cases Japanese investigators had ever seen.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, please replace the frosting on the Follow Buttons Vanilla Donut with mayonnaise.
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Rules and restrictions apply. Miyoko Sumida raced down the sidewalk in Amagasaki, Japan, trying to will her body to go faster.
Miyoko was 63 years old, and she couldn't remember the last time she had run, and her lungs were on fire and her legs felt heavy.
Even though it was a cool day out, she could feel the heavy eyeliner and mascara she always wore starting to run down her face.
Every cell in her body was screaming at her to just stop, but she knew that whatever she did, she couldn't stop.
She had already waited too long. Miyoko darted across the street and rounded a corner.
Ahead of her, the city spread out. In the distance was Amagasaki Castle.
It was a white 17th-century building with these graceful layers of traditional Japanese curved roofs, and it stood in stark contrast to the rest of the city, which was all low, boxy apartment buildings and factories and warehouses.
Miyoko turned a final corner, and there it was, the police station.
She ran inside and she called out for help.
A police officer came out from behind a window and in between breaths, Miyoko blurted out the reason she had come.
One of her closest friends had gone missing.
But the officer just stood there and stared at her calmly and told her to please slow down.
And suddenly, Miyoko became aware of what she must look like.
A little old frail lady with crazy hair, panting and gasping on the verge of tears.
So she tried to steady herself and calm down and start from the beginning.
In a shaky voice, Miyoko explained that her next-door neighbor had disappeared.
Her neighbor's name was Kai Oep. She was in her 40s, and she was a wonderful, caring friend.
But a few days ago, Kai had gotten into a strange car right outside her condominium and nobody had seen her since.
It was like she had vanished into thin air.
And so Miyoko worried something terrible had happened to Kai.
And now she wished she had come to the police sooner.
The officer assured Miyoko that he would file a report and the police would look into this right away.
But the officer also said that very likely there was a rational explanation here for why her friend had left.
Miyoko began to breathe a bit easier. She told herself everything would be okay.
The police would find Kai and bring her home.
On November 9th, 2011, a week and a half after Miyoko reported Kai missing, a foreman and his work crew arrived at an old abandoned warehouse in the industrial section of Amagasaki.
This warehouse was only a few miles from where Kai had last been seen, but the foreman and his crew didn't know anything about that.
They just knew this was where the job they had been hired for was taking place.
They were supposed to move some cargo that had been left inside the warehouse to a new location.
When the foreman led the crew inside, they saw this vast, mostly empty space with trash and dust on the concrete floor and cobwebs on the walls.
There were a few labeled crates scattered around, and so the foreman told his men to start moving them out to the truck.
And as the crew took each item out, the foreman would mark it off his list.
But then at some point, one of the workers noticed something tucked away in a dark corner of the warehouse.
The worker walked over to it and realized it was this big metal drum, like a barrel that might be used to store oil.
At first, he just assumed it was part of the cargo they were supposed to move, so he grabbed it and tried to slide it across the floor.
But the drum didn't budge. The worker laughed at himself.
He was a pretty strong guy, and he figured he should be able to move a single metal drum on his own.
So he took a breath, squatted down, gripped the top of the drum, and tried really hard to pull it out of the corner.
But still, it didn't move. A couple of the other workers saw him doing this, and so they joined him in the corner.
Together, they all gripped the metal drum and pulled.
And it moved, but barely. At this point, the foreman came over to see if he could help, and when he did, he immediately noticed that this drum did not have any markings on it.
And he thought that was very strange, because the other items they had come to move had all been very clearly labeled.
And so the foreman glanced down at his list, and he did not see the metal drum anywhere on it.
This sudden mystery got the crew excited, and they wondered what might be inside of this drum.
Maybe there was something valuable or illegal.
The foreman thought about just leaving the drum alone, but if it was a valuable item that somehow didn't make it onto this list but was required to be moved, well, the client would be angry if it was left behind.
So the foreman told his crew to open the drum to see what was inside.
Then they'd figure out what to do with it.
The men were all in good spirits and joking with each other as they pulled on the lid, and the foreman could feel his heart beating faster with the anticipation of what they might find inside.
Suddenly, the metal lid came loose and it clanged to the floor.
The foreman and his men leaned over the barrel to see what was inside.
And for a second, there was absolute silence in the warehouse.
As the foreman stared down into the drum, it was like everything around him disappeared.
Finally, one of his men let out this awful strangled scream, and it was like it snapped the foreman back into reality.
He fumbled to dig his phone out of his pocket, and then with a shaking hand, he dialed 110, the emergency line for police.
Not long after the foreman made that call, the lead investigator on the case, Officer Sato, walked into the warehouse along with dozens of police officers and forensic analysts.
The foreman and his crew were still inside, but they had all moved as far away as they could from the drum.
Officer Sato nodded at the men, but did not stop to talk to them.
Instead, he headed straight for the drum in the corner of the room.
And when he reached it, and he peered inside, he gave a long, sad sigh.
Inside the drum was the twisted body of a dead woman.
And there was something else inside of that drum that also horrified Sato.
Someone had poured cement inside the drum, and it had hardened and partially encased the woman's lower body. but he could still see enough of the victim to guess that she was probably in her 60s.
She had gray hair and wrinkles. Sato could also see that she had bruising on her neck and face, she was completely naked, and she was shockingly thin, almost emaciated.
As Sato stared down at the body, he felt his stomach turn.
There was a true level of cruelty in the way this victim had been disposed of that hit him hard.
But beyond his emotional reaction to this, Sato was also confused.
Because this scene didn't make sense. It was like his victim didn't match up with his crime scene.
If the body of this woman had been found in her home, he could have at least started to wrap his mind around it.
Because approximately one-third of women who are murdered in Japan are killed by current or former intimate male partners.
Most of those murders occur inside the home.
But this didn't look anything like a domestic violence killing.
In fact, Sato could only think of a few instances that involved covering up and abandoning a body like this.
And all of those instances were connected to gang violence.
In Japan, these gangs are referred to as Yakuza, which is kind of like saying the mafia.
Sato knew there were Yakuza groups in the city.
They typically engaged in financial crimes like extortion, smuggling, and prostitution.
But there were occasional episodes of major violence, including murder.
Still, Yakuza violence typically occurred between different gang factions, not between gang members and normal everyday people.
And Sato just couldn't imagine how the victim, this older woman, could have possibly gotten mixed up with the local gang.
Sato called over a forensics officer. The forensics officer joined Sato and then stared down into the metal drum.
He told Sato the bruising on the woman's face and neck suggested she had been beaten before she was killed.
And her body had not decomposed much, which could indicate that she had been killed recently.
However, they wouldn't know until the autopsy.
Sato nodded and then stepped away from the drum and slowly walked around the warehouse, looking for more evidence.
He didn't see any blood on the walls or floors, and there also weren't any rope fibers that would indicate the woman had been bound or held captive in the warehouse.
In fact, other than the body, there really was no sign of any violence.
But that lack of evidence actually helped Sato begin to form an early theory about what might have happened.
He believed the victim was most likely murdered somewhere else and then placed in the metal drum and then transported and hidden in this warehouse.
A few minutes later, Sato headed back to the police station.
He knew he really needed the autopsy before his investigation would have a clear direction because the autopsy would show him who the victim was.
However, in the meantime, he decided that the way the body was disposed of was a decent enough lead to get started.
The Yakuza had been known to leave their victims in metal drums, so he would start with them.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, my show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
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To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now. or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
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And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds, or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
The following day, members of Sato's investigative team fanned out to the dark corners of Amagasaki.
So back in the 1980s and 90s, and even into the early 2000s, the Yakuza had operated pretty openly in certain bars and restaurants.
People could always tell the establishments where the Yakuza were running brothels because there would be a scantily clad hostess at the door trying to entice customers to come inside.
And then when those customers stepped through the door, the whole place would be lit with a strange bright pink light.
And if they wanted to spend some money, they could go upstairs and pay for sex.
But now the Japanese police had begun a crackdown on Yakuza activities, passing a series of anti-gang laws and targeting different parts of their operations.
And so, when Sato's team talked to people in the seediest bars and restaurants in town, they didn't really come up with anything.
It seemed like the Yakuza were just laying low, not murdering women and stuffing their bodies into barrels.
Sato began to worry that this Yakuza lead was just going to take his team to a dead end.
But then, just a couple of days after the discovery of the body, the autopsy results arrived on Sato's desk.
Now, the report couldn't answer when this woman had died.
It was impossible to tell if she had been dead for days or months.
However, the report did give the identity of the victim.
Using dental records, authorities had identified her as Kazuko Oe, a 66-year-old woman who had lived in the city.
Sato kept on reading the autopsy, and when he finished it, he found attached at the back was this additional report.
And when he read this additional report, he was shocked.
The report said the dead woman found in the barrel was the mother of Kai Oe, a woman who'd recently been reported missing.
But that was not the craziest thing, because the missing woman, Kai, had not been missing at all.
A few days after Kai's neighbor, an older woman named Miyoko Sumida, had filed a missing persons report, the police had tracked down Kai, just 20 minutes away in the major city of Osaka.
And it would turn out Kai had been hiding out there using a fake name.
Very suspicious. And so Sato quickly contacted the officers who'd found Kai, and they told him that when they'd located her, they had no idea her mother was dead.
And so there was no connection drawn about perhaps Kai being involved in the death.
And since it was not illegal for her to run away and hide out in a different city and pretend to be somebody else, Kai had simply been brought home and allowed to return to her normal life like nothing had happened.
Now, Sato's mind began to race. He wondered if the case was really just this simple.
Maybe it had nothing to do with the Yakuza.
Maybe Kai had just murdered her own mother and then fled.
Sato knew he would have to act fast, because Kai had already tried to escape once, and so he didn't want her to catch wind that he was looking for her or she might try it again.
So, Sato quickly flagged down another investigator, and the two of them both ran out to Sato's car and sped through the city.
When Officer Sato and the other investigator knocked on the front door of Kai's condominium, a short, nervous-looking man in his 40s greeted them.
Now, the man was polite, but it seemed fairly obvious that he did not want them to come inside.
The man told Sato that he and his family knew about how Kazuko had been found in the drum in the warehouse, and so they just wanted privacy to deal with their grief.
But Sato told the man that he really needed to ask some questions and they could either talk here in his home or the man and his family could come to the police station.
The man turned around and scanned the apartment behind him like he was looking for something.
Then he muttered something under his breath and turned back to Sato and said, okay, you can come inside.
Sato and the other investigator paused to remove their shoes.
Then they followed the man into the front room.
And Sato couldn't explain it, but right away, he felt like something was off here.
He asked the man if he was related to the murder victim, Kazuko.
And the man said, yes, she was his mother-in-law.
But then he quickly corrected himself and said actually she was his former mother-in-law.
He was divorced from her daughter, but he still lived in the condo with his ex-wife, their kids, and Kazuko.
This surprised Sato. Why would a divorced couple keep living together?
But he just smiled and nodded. He wanted to keep the man talking very comfortably.
And just because the living situation seemed odd to him, that didn't mean there was anything wrong with it.
Eventually, Sato got to the point and asked the man if his ex-wife was Kai Oeth, the woman who had gone missing and then returned.
The man shook his head. He said he had been married to Kai's younger sister, but Kai actually also lived with them in the condo.
The man paused and again looked around the room like he was searching for something.
Then he turned back to Sato and just began to laugh.
Sato glanced at the other investigator, and he looked as creeped out as Sato did.
There was something so strange about this man, and it wasn't just that he clearly was very nervous.
A lot of people get nervous talking to the police, so they were used to that.
This weirdness was something else. Once the man stopped laughing, Sato asked him if Kai was home, and the man turned and pointed to a closed bedroom door.
Sato got up and walked over to it, knocked, and announced he was a police officer and asked if he could come inside.
There was a brief silence, and then Sato heard light footsteps from inside the room, and slowly the door opened.
And when Sato saw who opened the door, he had to consciously hide his shock.
Because the woman standing in front of him looked like a corpse.
She was rail-thin, and her eyes seemed hollowed out in her face.
Sato could see there were stains on her shirt, and her hair was stringy and greasy like it hadn't been washed in weeks.
He asked her if she was Kai, and she just nodded.
Sato stepped into the room, while the other investigator stayed back with the man.
In the room, Sato saw there was a plate on the floor with scraps of food on it, and also clothes were piled up in different spots.
The room smelled sort of musty, like the door hadn't been opened in a long time.
Sato wondered when Kai had last left her bedroom.
The silence was broken when Kai said she knew why he was there.
She had actually been expecting the police ever since she got the news that her mother's body had been found in that warehouse.
Sato asked if she knew what had happened to her mother, and in a voice so quiet that Sato had to lean in to hear her, Kai said, "...my mother took her own life."
This absolutely stunned Sato. If it was a lie, it was a really stupid one.
Because why would Kai expect him to believe that her mother had, what, put herself into a concrete-filled drum?
Or was she suggesting that her mother had killed herself, and then Kai, or maybe somebody else in her family, had then disposed of the body by putting it in the drum?
Sato waited for Kai to say more, but she didn't.
She just went quiet. Finally, when the silence between them had become deafening, Sato asked her, you know, hey, why'd you run off to Osaka a couple of weeks earlier?
Kai seemed to force a smile and then said the whole thing was a big misunderstanding.
She had just gone on a quick trip and was surprised anybody even noticed she was gone.
Now, this made perhaps less sense than even the idea that Kai's mother had put herself in the drum, but Sato stayed quiet.
He didn't want her to know that he was sort of onto her.
He was a big believer in letting people trap themselves through their own words.
But before Kai could say any more, Sato heard new voices outside the room, and he turned to see three people outside in the front room approaching his other investigator.
Kai told Sato that the three people were her sister and her sister's young teenage daughters.
Sato gestured to Kai to come with him, and then the two of them slipped out of her bedroom and headed towards the front room.
Sato introduced himself to the rest of Kai's family and then shot another look at his partner like, what's going on here?
The sister and the children looked as bad as Kai, like they hadn't eaten or slept in days.
And when Sato asked them the same basic questions about Kazuko's death that he had asked Kai, he noticed their eyes dart back and forth like they were trying to communicate with each other without actually saying anything.
And when they did speak, they all said the same thing, that Kazuko had taken her own life.
Sato felt like this whole situation was just insane.
He'd arrived here thinking maybe Kai was involved in her mother's death, but now, after seeing Kai and her family and the unsettling way they were all living, he had no idea what was going on here.
Why were they all so sickly? And why were they telling such transparent lies?
Sato didn't know if these people were guilty or innocent, but he did know one thing for sure.
They were hiding something. He told the family they would follow up soon, and then he and his partner stepped outside.
And then once they were out there, Sato said to his partner that, hey, while we're here, we should speak to the neighbors to see if any of them have a clue about what is going on inside of that condo.
They began knocking on doors, but the neighbors would just say they knew nothing and then quickly retreat back inside.
Now, this actually was not surprising to Sato.
In Japanese culture, people were often reluctant to speak about other families' lives, especially if that family was doing something illegal or if they were mourning the loss of a loved one.
But Sato had hoped he would have at least one opportunity for a helpful interview with a neighbor.
He had looked at the missing person report that had been filed about Kai, and he knew that the older woman who filed it, Miyoko Sumida, lived right next door.
Now, the investigators had actually already knocked on her door, but she hadn't answered.
However, Sato figured they should try one more time before they left.
After all, she's the one who filed the missing persons report, and so if anybody had more insight on the family, it would be her.
And this time, when they knocked on Miyoko's door again, she did answer.
However, she just seemed really scared and quickly apologized and said she had nothing more to say.
Sato and his partner were about to just give up and leave when a young couple opened up their door and actually invited the investigators inside.
The couple told them that months earlier, they had been out walking in a nearby park when all of a sudden they heard a woman screaming.
And when they looked in the direction of the scream, they saw Kai, her sister, and her brother-in-law and their daughters beating Kai's mother, Kazuko.
They said they had immediately called the police, but when the police arrived, they barely questioned the family.
Instead, the officers had a quiet conversation with the family, left after a few minutes, and never followed up with the couple.
This didn't surprise Sato either. At this time in Japan, domestic conflicts were handled very differently than pretty much any other kind of criminal investigation.
It came down to the same principle of respect for privacy that made Kay's neighbors refuse to talk to them.
Basically, police thought that family problems, even nasty ones, should be dealt with by the family.
Sato was disappointed he hadn't gotten more information.
But as he and his partner left the young couple's home, his mind began to race.
Kazuko had been beaten before she died. There was all that bruising on her neck.
And now, Sato knew that Kazuko's own family had been beating her.
However, this didn't solve the mystery. In fact, it only tangled it further.
Because after seeing Kai and the others in that condo, Sato didn't think they could actually physically carry out all the steps of Kazuko's murder.
Kai looked so weak that it seemed like she could barely stand on her two feet, and the rest of her family wasn't much better.
So how could they beat Kazuko to death, then transport her body to the warehouse and cover it with cement?
Sato could not answer those questions, and he didn't even know where to look.
The next afternoon, Sato was at his desk trying to figure out his next step when his phone rang.
He picked it up, and the man on the other end spoke barely above a whisper, and he said, I have important information about Kazuko Oe's murder.
Sato felt a rush of adrenaline, and instinctively, he just stood up at his desk.
He asked who the caller was, but the man wouldn't give a name, and Sato didn't want to scare him off, so he didn't press.
The man said he didn't know how Kazuko had died, but he was certain that her family was under the thumb of a vicious Yakuza gang.
And this particular gang had a ruthless leader, who was perhaps the most terrifying Yakuza leader in the whole city.
After that, the caller hung up. Sato stood there in shock.
It was like he had arrived back at the very beginning of this case, when he had stood over Kazuko's body in the metal drum and wondered if this was the work of the Yakuza.
Sato immediately began a deep dive into the O.F. family's finances.
He knew that almost all Yakuza crime just came down to money.
And right away, a series of financial transactions jumped out at him.
Over the past two years, the family had made repeated big payments at regular intervals.
And when investigators tracked the group receiving these payments, they discovered a connection to the Yakuza.
So, Sato began to believe that Kazuko's family had somehow gotten into debt with the wrong people, and Kazuko had paid with her life.
And on November 26th, 2011, which was just over two weeks after the discovery of the body, Sato rounded up five known Yakuza members in the area and brought them in for questioning.
However, Yakuza members rarely ever talked to the police.
So after five mostly silent interviews, Sato had no clear evidence linking any of them to the murder.
And he still had no idea who this gang's supposed ruthless leader was.
So by the time that 2011 ended, Sato had hit another dead end.
And soon months went by with no new evidence coming in.
And so Sato began to think that he might never know who killed Kazuko.
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Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.
On October 14th, 2012, so 11 months after the discovery of Kazuko's body, a pair of Amagasaki police officers approached an empty one-story house in a residential neighborhood.
They were following up on an anonymous tip, very similar to the one that Sato had gotten.
From the outside, the house looked like every other house on the block.
But the second the officers opened the door, they knew something was very wrong with this place.
The faint odor of something rotten filled the front room.
The power was out, so the officers turned on their flashlights and headed down a dark hallway.
The further they went into the house, the worse the smell got.
Towards the back of the house, the officers found a room that was closed off by traditional Japanese sliding doors with wood frames covered in opaque paper.
As they approached it, the rotten smell became almost unbearable.
They braced themselves and then opened the sliding doors.
Inside, they saw six large tatami mats made of thick woven straw covering the floor.
Traditionally, shoes and socks would be removed before stepping on these mats, but the officers just quickly walked into the room because they were sure that whatever they were looking for was somewhere inside of here.
The rotten smell seemed to be coming from somewhere below them, so one of the officers crouched down, held his breath, grabbed the edge of the mat in the center of the room, and started to pull. and as the mat slid away, darkness opened up beneath it, and the officer shouted to his partner to come look.
Under the mat, there was a hole in the floor, and when the officers peered down inside of it, what they saw made them want to run out of the room and vomit, because at the bottom of that hole, partially encased in cement, were three naked, decomposing bodies.
These officers quickly alerted Officer Sato, And it didn't take long for Sato to discover that these three new victims shared a common link with his original victim, Kazuko Oe.
This link was a person who they were all very close to.
It would turn out all four of these victims had been the victims of the Yakuza.
There was a ruthless Yakuza leader who had overseen all of their murders.
But Sato would soon learn that these murders were just the tip of the iceberg.
This particular gang leader had overseen the murder of multiple entire families over the last 25 years.
Based on evidence discovered at several crime scenes and from interviews conducted over the course of a year, the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Kazuko Owek.
On the night of September 11, 2011, two months before Kazuko's body would be found, the ruthless Yakuza leader reclined on a luxurious couch in a room filled with high-end furniture and artwork.
The leader checked the time, and then picked up a phone and made a call.
One of the killers answered, and without hesitating, the leader told the killer, Now.
Then the leader hung up, tossed the phone on the couch, and calmly waited.
Not long after that, the two killers stood outside of Kazuko's bedroom, where she was fast asleep.
After a minute, they signaled to each other that they were ready.
Then they opened the door and rushed Kazuko's bed and leapt on top of her.
Kazuko woke up to the sight of fists flying at her face.
She tried to fight off the killers, but they had her pinned down, and each punch left her dazed and writhing in pain.
She tried to cry out, but she was too weak.
The killers brushed away Kazuko's arms as she tried desperately to protect herself, and they kept on pounding her in the face, the neck, and the head until Kazuko just stopped fighting back.
When Kazuko went still and the killers realized she was dead, they climbed off the bed and backed out of the room.
Back in the front room, one of the killers called the leader to say the job was done.
But the leader just laughed and told the killers to stay right there because the job was not, in fact, done.
The killers did exactly what they were told.
They always did exactly what they were told.
They stood there in complete silence, waiting.
Finally, the front door opened and the ruthless Yakuza leader walked into the condominium. the killers led the leader into Kazuko's bedroom.
The leader stared at Kazuko's body and then barked for the killers to move her to the bathtub and cover her with ice.
The killers obeyed. And once Kazuko's body lay under a blanket of ice, the leader brought the killers back to the front room.
There, the leader told them to write a suicide note and to make sure the note included Kazuko's last wishes, that Kazuko wanted to leave all of her money, her possessions, and property to the Yakuza leader.
The leader then told the killers that the last thing they would have to do was secure a metal drum so that other members of the gang could transport the drum with Kazuko's body inside to a warehouse.
The killers nodded silently. Once the plan was set, the leader smiled at the killers and then turned around and walked back outside and went right back next door to the condominium where they lived and went back to relaxing on the couch. the ruthless Yakuza leader who had ordered the brutal murder of Kazuko Oe and who had presided for more than two decades over a secret and twisted reign of terror was literally the last person Sato or anyone else had expected when this investigation began.
Because the leader didn't look like some hardened criminal who could rule people through physical intimidation.
Instead, she looked like a kind old woman.
Her name was Miyoko Sumida. She was the 63-year-old woman who had rushed to the police to tell them that her neighbor, Kaio-e, had gone missing and she was so upset about it.
But to just call Miyoko a Yakuza leader would be a huge understatement.
Miyoko was more like a serial killer and a cult leader.
Over the course of their investigation, Sato and his team discovered that Miyoko's introduction to cruelty and brutality had come at a very young age.
She grew up in Amagasaki during the chaos of post-World War II Japan, when the country was trying to recover from the devastation of the war.
During that time, certain areas of the country bordered on lawlessness, and Miyoko's father had taken full advantage of that.
Miyoko's father had been a very successful contractor who brought in North Korean laborers to work for him.
He let those workers live in his home and eat his food, but he also beat those workers every day, took 40% of their wages, and threatened to kill them if they didn't do exactly as he asked.
And so over time, out of fear and desperation, these men became completely obedient to Miyoko's father. and Miyoko had watched all of this very closely and even had begun to study her father's methods.
Then, in her 20s, Miyoko herself entered into a life of crime, using a lot of what she had learned from her father.
Her first major foray into the criminal world had been to buy one of those bars with the bright pink lights on the seedy side of the city that offered customers the opportunity to pay for sex.
That had allowed Miyoko to meet members of the local Yakuza and to familiarize herself with their tactics.
When she was ready, she sold the bar and assembled a gang of her own.
She recruited family, friends, and other people she trusted.
Miyoko set out to get as much money and power as she possibly could, and using threats of violence from her gang played a role in her plans.
But Miyoko went far beyond typical Yakuza violence to get what she wanted.
Because just like her father, Miyoko understood that fear alone was not enough to own people.
Her victims, they had to need her. In a way, Miyoko made her victims love her.
To do this, she targeted families that owned property or businesses.
She infiltrated those families by offering things like financial assistance to help their businesses grow.
And at first, people viewed her as a generous benefactor, a kind, wealthy woman who just wanted to help others succeed.
But once Miyoko gained a family's trust, she used what some might call mind control to gain power over them.
She would start by turning members of the family against each other, causing problems in their house or in their business, and then blaming those problems on one specific family member.
And through her financial assistance, Miyoko would start to make that family feel dependent on her to survive, just like her father had done with the laborers.
And Miyoko would also use her money as a way to get family members to do favors for her.
These favors started out small and got bigger over time.
And slowly, the family would grow more and more obedient.
And while all this was happening, Miyoko would start to make rules about when a family could eat, when they could sleep, who they could talk to, and when they could go outside.
And if any of them pushed back, Miyoko would order her gang to inflict serious physical harm on them.
So using these methods, Miyoko was able to completely break people down mentally and physically to the point where entire families were terrified of her and also simultaneously completely loyal to her.
And it would turn out, Miyoko had used these methods to infiltrate Kazuko's family.
That's how she got Kazuko's own daughter, Kai, and other family members to publicly beat Kazuko, like that young couple had witnessed in the park.
But Miyoko's demands did not stop with forced beatings.
Her ultimate goal was to take everything that family had.
Their money, their property, their assets, all of it. and for that to happen, Kazuko would have to die, and then give everything to Miyoko in her will.
But Miyoko did not want blood on her own hands.
This was the horrifying truth that Sato and his investigators discovered at the heart of this case.
Miyoko and the members of her gang did not physically murder Kazuko.
Instead, at Miyoko's command, Kai and her sister beat their own mother to death.
In manipulating Kazuko's daughters into murdering her and then willing over all her assets, Miyoko had imposed her brutal will, like she had done without consequence for years.
But what she hadn't counted on this time was Kai's reaction.
Because Miyoko may have thought that she had Kai completely under her control, like she had everyone else, but she was wrong.
A tiny part of who Kai was before Miyoko came into her life had survived.
After Kai had murdered her own mother, she felt instant regret, and she couldn't contain it.
Now, Miyoko had noticed Kai's emotional turmoil, and she knew it posed a risk to her.
So, on October 30, 2011, Miyoko had left Kai tied up and locked in a car alone, debating what she should do with her.
But Kai had managed to escape, and that's when she fled to Osaka and began living under a different name.
When Miyoko realized that Kai was gone, she ran to the police station and played the hysterical, desperate old woman just trying to find someone she loved.
She knew the police would immediately believe her, and she was right.
And when the police found Kai, she refused to tell them anything.
Remember, she was terrified of Miyoko, but she was also guilty of her own mother's murder.
How could she possibly explain her situation to the police?
So she just came home. And so by the time Sato visited the OF family condo, Kai had been locked inside of her bedroom, starved, and was getting beaten by her own family ever since her return.
And Kai almost certainly would have suffered the same fate as her mother if that work crew in the old abandoned warehouse hadn't gotten curious about the unmarked drum mixed in with the rest of their cargo.
It would turn out that over the course of 25 years, Miyoko had infiltrated and destroyed at least five families, including the family that was found under the floor.
And each time, Miyoko had manipulated members of those families to kill each other or to kill themselves.
In the end, police charged Miyoko with eight murders, but they were only able to recover six bodies.
And there are a lot of people who believe that Miyoko has been involved in even more murders.
Kai and her sister were ultimately treated as victims in Miyoko's crimes, and they were not charged in their mother's murder.
In December of 2012, while in prison, Miyoko strangled herself with her own clothes and died in her cell.
After her death, Miyoko would come to be known in Japan by names like the Killer Grandma, Piranha, and the Demon.
But to this day, some people refuse to believe that Miyoko is actually dead.
They argue that she simply used her powers of manipulation to fake her own death and escape from prison.
A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
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