Miyoko Sumida was the head of a household in Amagasaki, an industrial city in Hyogo Prefecture between Osaka and Kobe, around which eight people died. She was arrested in November 2011, indicted in February 2012 over the death of a 66-year-old woman, and re-arrested in November 2012 with several relatives on charges that included murder. On December 12, 2012, she died in a holding cell at the Hyogo Prefectural Police headquarters in Kobe. She was 64. Police treated her death as suicide, and no court ever tried her.
What is known of her conduct comes mostly from the trials of seven people who lived with her: a sister-in-law, two sons, a common-law husband, a cousin by marriage, a daughter-in-law and a man who had married into the household. Between November 2014 and February 2016 the Kobe District Court convicted all seven, finding in every case that they had acted in conspiracy with her. The Kobe Shimbun covered those trials day by day.
The Kobe Shimbun described Sumida's household as a pseudo-family. Over the years she brought unrelated young men and women into it by adoption or marriage, and the press came to treat the group as a family in its own right. Christian Today, reporting the 2015 verdict against one of her relatives, said she had gathered people not related to her by blood and lived with them for about 25 years.
Her lead defense lawyer, a member of the Hyogo bar who had known her for more than two decades, described the pattern to the Kobe Shimbun in 2022. She would step into a minor family problem, he said, and make the family hold meetings about it. When someone said something she disliked she used violence, and she pressed the family's own members to do the same, telling them that it was not right for an outsider to be doing the hitting while relatives looked on. Families ended up abusing and blaming one another. At least four families broke apart, the paper reported.
Her adopted eldest son, then 33, told the court in May 2015 that she ruled people through fear and that anyone who angered her or crossed her wishes became a target of abuse. Her second son was in fact the biological child of her sister-in-law, who testified that Sumida had made her register the boy's birth in Sumida's name. The second son's lawyers told the court that Sumida had raised him, beat him often, and did not let him go to elementary or junior high school.
Sumida's relatives by marriage formed the core of the household. Her sister-in-law, 62 at her trial and described in court as her younger sister-in-law, lived with her for nearly 30 years and was once her most trusted companion, according to the Kobe Shimbun. Her common-law husband, 65 at his trial, told the court he could never say anything against her. A cousin by marriage, 41 at his trial, lived with the household from around 2002 and was adopted into the family as the son of her uncle, prosecutors said.
The Bunshun Online account, published in 2022, traced the beginning of the case to a funeral in Amagasaki in March 1998. The dead woman was Sumida's aunt by marriage. According to a relative the journalist interviewed, Sumida quarreled with the dead woman's family over the funeral and the grave and then turned on the family of the dead woman's sister, demanding that her sons deal with their mother. The article used pseudonyms for that family.
Her adopted eldest son, who was born into that family, gave his own account in court. In his first year of high school, he said, he came home to find Sumida and her sister-in-law at his house. After a relative's funeral, Sumida confronted his family over a dispute, and relatives were made to live together for about a month in a condominium in Nishinomiya, holding meetings about how his father's debts would be repaid. They fought constantly and could not go to work. One by one his father, his mother, his brother and other relatives fled, and a cousin took his own life during the stay. He stayed behind, was adopted by Sumida and, he said, was told to discard the name his parents had given him.
Bunshun Online reported that a relative who had escaped went to police in January 2000 and confessed to thefts the group had carried out, and that Sumida and others were arrested in February 2000. Her lawyer told the Kobe Shimbun that in 2000 she was indicted with relatives for theft committed as a group. Investigators already knew of suicides and suspicious deaths around her, he said, but none of them was charged. The court rejected the prosecution's argument that Sumida had led the group, accepted the defense case that she was an ordinary housewife, and gave her a suspended sentence. More than 20 years later he told the paper that the argument had turned out to be wrong.
The deaths that reached trial ran from 2005 to 2011. In each case it was Sumida's relatives and associates, not Sumida, who stood trial.
A man of 51, born into the Hashimoto family and later taking the household's surname, died in July 2005 after a fall in Okinawa. He was the brother of Jiro Hashimoto. Prosecutors charged the co-defendants with murder and fraud, arguing that the household had pushed him into a position where jumping was his only option, so that his life insurance would be paid. In May 2015 Sumida's sister-in-law testified that the household had been short of money and that she had wanted him to do it quickly; prosecutors noted that she had written in her diary at the time that he had no guts. She said the insurance money went to pay debts. The defense argued that he had chosen to die to help the family and that the defendants were guilty at most of assisting a suicide. The courts disagreed: the second son's judgment found that the household created a situation in which he could not escape death, and the 2016 judgment against the daughter-in-law called his death a murder for insurance money and "the most unforgivable" of the crimes.
A woman of 26 died in December 2008. Her younger sister was taken into the household at 17 in 2003 after their family broke down, and later married Sumida's son. The older sister married a man who had lived with the household since 2006. In June 2008 the couple ran away together. Her husband described the escape in court: they walked west through Kobe toward Himeji, slept rough and stole food, then reached Tokyo, where she seemed happier, helped a friend with housework and played with the friend's children. They were tracked down in Okinawa. In July 2008, prosecutors said, both were confined at the household's apartment in Amagasaki; the husband was released partway through. She was confined for about five months and abused, the court found, and died weakened by it. The Kobe District Court ruled that keeping her confined after she was already gravely weakened amounted to murder. In the judgment against the cousin by marriage, the presiding judge called it a cruel crime and spoke of the unimaginable pain and regret she must have suffered.
A woman of 67 was confined in the household in 2008, according to the indictment against the young woman's husband. She died afterward. He was convicted of confining her; no homicide charge over her death has been reported.
The mother of the two sisters fell gravely ill in March 2008 and died the following year, in June 2009, at 59. The cousin by marriage was charged with injury resulting in death; he admitted a related abduction charge but denied the assault that prosecutors said caused her death. Her younger daughter, Sumida's daughter-in-law, was also convicted over the abduction of her mother. The father of the older daughter, who had been married to the mother, said after one verdict that his daughter and his wife had both been killed after abuse that was far too cruel.
Jiro Hashimoto, the brother of the man who died in Okinawa, was 53 when he died in July 2011 after being confined and abused in the household. The co-defendants were charged with his unlawful confinement, murder and abandonment of his body.
The case came to light in November 2011. A woman who had been held captive escaped and went to the police, and Sumida was arrested on suspicion of injuring her, according to the 2022 Bunshun Online account. The same month, the body of a 66-year-old woman was found in Amagasaki. In February 2012 Sumida was indicted with others on a charge of injury resulting in death over that death, Japan Today reported. Three of the dead woman's daughters were also prosecuted in that case; in October 2014 the Osaka High Court gave them prison sentences with suspended execution, and two of them appealed to the Supreme Court, the Kobe Shimbun reported.
The rest of the household's history emerged during 2012. Sumida's sister-in-law testified that after Sumida's arrest the younger members began working outside the home and the children went to kindergarten, and that the household briefly hoped for an ordinary life. The sister-in-law was later arrested on a separate theft charge and, in October 2012, confessed to the series of crimes. From October to December 2012, five bodies were found in Amagasaki, in Bizen in Okayama Prefecture and in Takamatsu in Kagawa Prefecture, the Kobe Shimbun reported; three of them were found in Amagasaki in mid-October.
On November 7, 2012, police re-arrested Sumida, along with her common-law husband, her two sons and the man who had married the 26-year-old woman, AFP reported, citing Japanese media; warrants had been issued for three others. The Kobe Shimbun reported that the Hyogo Prefectural Police arrested her and seven relatives on charges including murder. In all, police arrested Sumida, seven relatives and three acquaintances, and confirmed eight deaths around her household. Hyogo, Kagawa and Okinawa prefectural police formed a joint investigation headquarters; Bunshun Online reported that it was disbanded on March 13, 2014.
After her arrest Sumida said little about the case itself. According to a Kobe Shimbun reporter who covered it, she said that everything was her fault but refused to sign her statement. Her lawyer said she talked mostly about the household, and that after her relatives were arrested she said she wanted to die and lost her energy.
Early on the morning of December 12, 2012, Sumida was found unresponsive in a three-person cell on the third floor of the Hyogo Prefectural Police headquarters in Kobe, J-CAST News reported, citing the police account. An officer on duty found her at about 6:21 a.m., and she was pronounced dead at a hospital at 7:15 a.m. AFP reported that an autopsy was carried out and that newspapers, citing her lawyer, said she had often expressed a wish to die. The police treated the death as suicide. The prefectural police said there had been no breach of rules and no problem with how detainees were supervised, J-CAST reported.
Her lawyer told the Kobe Shimbun that at their last meeting, the day before her death, she asked him to put his hand on hers, and that he told her not to think of anything foolish. She was buried in an unclaimed grave. She tried to give the diary she had kept in her cell to her sister-in-law, who refused it. On the day she died, one investigator told a Kobe Shimbun reporter that her death was the greatest destruction of evidence in the case. Her lawyer, looking back ten years later, called her a lonely person who had pursued an ideal family and used violence and fear to get it.
Her relatives' reactions came out at trial. Her sister-in-law said in July 2015 that Sumida had driven many people to their deaths and left the young members of the household to carry the blame, and called her death cowardly. The sister-in-law also told the court that she had long wished, every night, that Sumida would die.
The trials of Sumida's relatives were among the longest in the history of Japan's lay judge system, which began in 2009. The citizen judges in her second son's trial served 132 days; the joint trial of her sister-in-law, her adopted eldest son and her common-law husband ran for a selection period of 140 days, the longest up to that time. The Kobe District Court split the hearings by incident, with interim closing arguments after each.
Her second son, then 27, went on trial on November 19, 2014, charged with murder, confinement and abandonment of a body over five deaths between 2005 and 2011. He denied conspiring with Sumida, whom he named in court without any honorific. His lawyers said he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and a dissociative disorder from childhood abuse. On March 18, 2015, the court found that he had conspired with her in all five incidents and sentenced him to 17 years, against the 25 prosecutors had sought, saying he took part in the household's crimes as a member of the household. The sentence became final.
The husband of the 26-year-old woman, 45 at his trial, was tried on six counts. On March 19, 2015, the court convicted him of conspiracy on all of them, including the murder and confinement of his wife, the confinement of the 67-year-old woman, and the confinement, murder and abandonment of the body of Jiro Hashimoto. It called his position subordinate but said he had taken part as a member of the household, and noted that he too had been abused, including being confined with his wife. He was sentenced to 15 years against the 20 sought; the sentence became final in early April 2015. His wife's father said he could not forgive him for failing to save his daughter despite many chances.
The sister-in-law, the adopted eldest son and the common-law husband faced nine counts, including three murders, over the deaths of the man who died in Okinawa, the 26-year-old woman and Jiro Hashimoto. Prosecutors asked for 30 years each, the maximum fixed term. On September 16, 2015, the court sentenced each to 21 years. It reduced the murder count over Jiro Hashimoto's death to injury resulting in death, finding no intent to kill, and upheld the other two murder counts. It said that defying Sumida, who held absolute authority, had been extremely difficult and that their role was subordinate. The young woman's father said the defendants should serve their sentences while atoning for Sumida's share as well.
The cousin by marriage faced ten counts over five incidents, including three murders and the charge of injury resulting in death over the sisters' mother. On November 13, 2015, the court convicted him on all counts and sentenced him to life imprisonment, the sentence prosecutors sought. The presiding judge said Sumida had used him to do the household's dirty work, that he had played an important role comparable to Sumida's, that the case was one in which the death penalty had to be considered, and that the court hesitated to impose it only because he had been subordinate to her. The Osaka High Court upheld the life sentence in March 2017, saying his role was not equal to hers but was the second most important. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in a decision dated March 6, 2018, making the sentence final.
The daughter-in-law, 30 at her trial, faced nine counts, including the three murders and the abduction of her own mother. She had come to admire Sumida and called her "mother," the court heard, and Sumida gave her a new name. After Sumida's death she gave detailed statements and testified for the prosecution in the trials of six relatives. On February 12, 2016, the court found her an accomplice in every case and sentenced her to 23 years against the 30 sought, recognizing that she had been drawn in at 17 but finding that she had also followed by her own judgment. It credited her with helping to establish the truth. Her sentence became final later that month. Her father, also a relative of a victim, said that if investigators had listened sooner, many victims might have been spared.
By 2022 all seven sentences, from 15 years to life, were final, the Kobe Shimbun reported.
The number of dead differs between accounts. The Hyogo police confirmed eight deaths around the household. The 2022 Bunshun Online account put the number of dead or missing at ten or more. Christian Today reported in 2015 that charges of murder or injury resulting in death had been brought over six of the eight confirmed deaths.
Two people remained missing. In February 2014 Hyogo police issued public notices for a man who was 37 and a woman who was 61; the man was last seen around January 2000 and the woman around October 2003, and both had lived under the household's control. When the joint headquarters disbanded, police said the search for them would continue. Bunshun Online reported in 2022 that neither had been found.
Because Sumida died before trial, the courts never weighed evidence against her. Her role appears in the judgments only as the courts described it in convicting others: as the person who held absolute authority in the household and whose wishes the defendants followed. Several defendants argued that they had merely obeyed her, and the courts accepted that they were subordinate while rejecting the claim that this excused them. Jurors at the last trial said they had faced difficult decisions without her in the courtroom.
March 1998: Funeral in Amagasaki of Sumida's aunt by marriage, which Bunshun Online traces as the start of the case.
January to February 2000: A relative goes to police; Sumida and others are arrested over thefts; she later receives a suspended sentence.
2002: Her cousin by marriage begins living with the household, prosecutors say.
2003: Her future daughter-in-law, 17, is taken into the household.
July 2005: A 51-year-old man of the household, Jiro Hashimoto's brother, dies in a fall in Okinawa.
March 2008: The daughter-in-law's mother loses consciousness in Osaka; she dies in June 2009, aged 59.
June 2008: The daughter-in-law's older sister and her husband flee; they are brought back from Okinawa.
December 2008: The older sister dies at 26.
July 2011: Jiro Hashimoto dies at 53.
November 2011: A confined woman escapes; Sumida is arrested; a 66-year-old woman's body is found in Amagasaki.
February 2012: Sumida is indicted with others over the 66-year-old woman's death.
October to December 2012: Five bodies are found in Amagasaki, Bizen and Takamatsu.
November 7, 2012: Sumida and relatives are arrested on charges including murder.
December 12, 2012: Sumida dies in a Hyogo police holding cell in Kobe, aged 64.
February 17, 2014: Police publish notices for two missing people.
March 13, 2014: The joint investigation headquarters disbands.
March 18, 2015: Her second son sentenced to 17 years.
March 19, 2015: The older sister's husband sentenced to 15 years.
September 16, 2015: Her sister-in-law, adopted eldest son and common-law husband sentenced to 21 years each.
November 13, 2015: Her cousin by marriage sentenced to life imprisonment.
February 12, 2016: Her daughter-in-law sentenced to 23 years.
March 17, 2017: Osaka High Court upholds the cousin's life sentence.
March 6, 2018: Supreme Court dismisses the cousin's appeal.