Yasutoshi Kamata

 VICTIMS: 5

Okay, so to begin with I must admit that I know almost nothing about Kamata. All this stuff is basically taken from newspaper reports on his trial, so if I have a few facts wrong it's all the media's fault - not mine. So that's me covering my ass, lets get to the story of Yasutoshi Kamata.

I must admit that I know absolutely nothing about his background - except that he was born in 1940 and that he lived in Osaka's Nishinari Ward (remember this name) at the time of the first murders.

Kamata's first murder took place in May 1985 when he allegedly strangled a housewife, Fusae Azuma, 46, in Osaka's Nishinari Ward. According to prosecutors, Kamata murdered the homemaker, of Joto Ward, Osaka, after quarreling with her.

In June the same year, he allegedly killed 19-year-old Midori Chinen, who had disappeared two months earlier while on her way to work at a home for the mentally handicapped in Tondabayashi, Osaka Prefecture. Kamata allegedly strangled this one in the same ward.

In January 1987, Kamata allegedly murdered Kumiko Tsujikado, a third-year primary school student of Sumiyoshi Ward, Osaka, after luring her to his apartment. He then allegedly pretended the girl was still alive and telephoned her school to demand a 30 million yen ransom.

It's here that the murders stopped for a while. You see poor Kamata was caught thieving and imprisoned on two separate occasions. But as the saying goes, you can't keep a good man down.

In July 1993, about four months after finishing the second sentence, he allegedly strangled Kazue Suda, 45, a bar employee of Nishinari Ward, Osaka. In March the following year, he allegedly strangled 37-year-old Kimiko Nakano, a waitress of Chuo Ward, Osaka.

Prosecutors claimed Kamata murdered the women because he was pissed off by their requests for a loan. In an attempt to keep the bodies from discovery Kamata chopped up the remains of Wada and Nakano and disposed of them in the mountains.

But he got unlucky, he was caught not long afterwards. Kamata allegedly confessed to all the five murders during investigation but later denied any knowledge of the crimes and pleaded not guilty during the first hearing in March 1996.

The court admitted the testimony of a voice identification expert who said the voice of the person who made the ransom demand by telephone to Tsujikado's school was different from that of the suspect. But this wasn't enough for his release.

Oddly the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office took the rare step of treating three of the murders separately from the remaining two, and demanded the death penalty for both sets of murders. The prosecution said the string of murders which Kamata is accused of merits the unusual demand because his was ''a brutal and atrocious case rarely seen in the annals of crime in our country.''

The prosecution told Presiding Judge Nobuyuki Yokota that Kamata has ''a strong antisocial tendency and that there is no room for correction,'' adding the families of the victims sought the most extreme penalty.

Unfortunately I haven't received news of the verdict as yet (hence all the "allegedly"'s on this page) so I can't tell you the final chapter of his story, but as soon as I find out it will be posted right here, I guarantee it.
 

MY OPINION

Well it's hard to really form an opinion on this guy as this is all i really know about him. And one always tries to wait on a verdict before hailing a man as great, but once his fate is known I seriously think this guy will go down as being quite good at his trade. One of the best from Japan at the very least.