The Crime Book

224

O

n 26 January 1948, a man

in his mid-40s wearing the

armband of a municipal

official entered a suburban branch

of Teigin (Imperial) Bank in Tokyo.

He told the staff he was an

epidemiologist from the Tokyo

Metropolitan government who had

been sent by the US occupation

authorities to inoculate them

against an outbreak of dysentery.

Each of the 16 bank employees

and customers present took the pill

and several drops of liquid the man

offered. Soon, they were writhing

on the floor in agony. Stepping

around their dying bodies, the man

plundered the bank, taking all the

money he could find: a paltry

¥160,000 (about £5,300 today).

Manhunt for a poisoner

Had all of the victims poisoned with

the cyanide compound died, this

would have been the perfect crime,

albeit not a very lucrative one.

Miraculously, though, four escaped

death and were able to provide a

description of the perpetrator.

This was the third time in

recent months that a lone man had

used poison to rob a bank. In the

first incident, he had offered staff a

fake business card with the name

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Tokyo, Japan

THEME

Mass poisoning

BEFORE

1871 In Brighton, England,

Christiana Edmunds buys

chocolates from a confectioner,

laces them with strychnine

sourced from a local chemist,

and returns them to the shop.

Many people fall ill after eating

the chocolates, including a

four-year-old boy, who dies.

AFTER

1982 In Chicago, six adults

and a 12-year-old girl die after

taking Tylenol. Bottles of the

painkiller had been removed

from stores and pharmacies,

laced with cyanide, and then

returned to the shelves by an

unknown hand.

THE ARTIST WAS SO

WELL INFORMED ON

CHEMICALS... IT

WAS FRIGHTENING

SADAMICHI HIRASAWA, 1948

A man claiming to

be a health official

visits a bank

in Tokyo

He offers liquid cyanide

to 16 people, 12 die.

The poisoner escapes with

cash and cheques

Police track down

Sadamichi Hirasawa

through a business card

and arrest him

Hirasawa pleads

innocent at the trial,

but is convicted

and receives the

death penalty

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225

After Hirasawa’s death, his adopted

son, Takehiko (right), fought to secure a

posthumous retrial. Takehiko died in

2013, but his father’s lawyers urged

other relatives to continue the battle.

See also: The Dreyfus Affair 310–11

MURDER CASES

“Jiro Yamaguchi”, while in the

second he had produced a genuine

card – that of Shigeru Matsui of the

Ministry of Health and Welfare,

Department of Disease Prevention.

Cleared by alibi, Matsui told police

that he had exchanged 92 of his

cards. Fortunately, he made a note

of the time and location of the

exchange on the back of the cards

he received. Using this data, police

tracked down and cleared 62 of the

card recipients. A further 22 were

investigated and excluded from

the investigation.

One recipient, an acclaimed

artist named Sadamichi Hirasawa,

stood out as suspicious. He was

unable to provide the investigators

with the card Matsui had given

him as he said he had been pick-

pocketed. Nor could his alibi be

confirmed. Also, two surviving

witnesses identified Hirasawa as

the poisoner, and more than

¥100,000 – the origins of which

Hirasawa would not disclose –

was discovered in his possession.

Arrested on 21 August 1948,

Hirasawa protested his innocence.

Soon after, however, he offered a

confession in which he admitted to

committing four prior bank frauds.

He later retracted his statement.

By the time of his trial in 1950,

Hirasawa had attributed his entire

confession to coercion and mental

illness. He was sentenced to die,

but instead spent 32 years on death

row until he died of pneumonia at

age 95. It is thought that no

Japanese politician would order

his execution because there was

widespread doubt about his guilt. ■

Sadamichi Hirasawa Sadamichi Hirasawa was a

Japanese painter distinguished by

his use of tempera – a fast-drying

egg-based mixture that had been

the most common form of paint

until the advent of oils during

the Renaissance. He was born in

Tokyo in 1892, but when he was

five, the family moved to Otaru on

Hokkaido. Determined to become

a painter, Hirasawa joined the art

club at Otaru junior high school.

Even at this young age, many

claimed he was already better

than his teacher. When he was 22,

his painting Ainyu Woman Drying

Kelp won a prize at a prestigious

national exhibition, providing

a solid start to his career as a

professional artist. His works

were selected to appear in the

Imperial Art Exhibition on 16

consecutive occasions.

However, after World War II,

his work became less popular.

Following his murder conviction,

his work was largely dismissed

in Japan as being that of a

degenerate criminal. During his

decades in prison, Hirasawa

passed the time working on a

legal quest to exonerate himself,

making hundreds of drawings

and writing his autobiography.

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