crime

Police continue search for missing body parts of slain univ student

18 Comments

Police continued their search on Tuesday for the remaining body parts of University of Shimane student Miyako Hiraoka, 19, whose head was found last Friday and her torso and legs found in the mountainous area a few days later, police said.

Police scoured the area for Hiraoka’s arms and right foot as well as any evidence which might help police track down the person or persons responsible for her murder. Around 120 officers, some with police dogs, resumed their efforts Tuesday morning but had to call off their search at around 3.30 p.m. due to bad weather.

Police said they had received around 60 calls with potentially useful information to date, but that none of them had been able to provide a solid lead. One person has told police that they noticed a burgundy car repeatedly stop and then accelerate suddenly on Oct 29.

Police said the roughly 120 officers continued their search of the area on Wednesday, and that other officers will continue questioning friends and acquaintances of Hiraoka as well as residents in the area.

© Wire reports

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

18 Comments
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Another shocking crime committed by a real nut-job, I just hope the police and their canine buddies can find all the outstanding pieces before the local wildlife does.

Moreover, although this girl does not qualify for missing white woman syndrome, I seriously hope that readers possess a similar amount of outrage as has flowed forth over the Hawker case.

Moderator: There is no such thing as "missing white woman syndrome." Please refrain from making such pointless remarks.

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Having this case unsolved disturbs me far more than having Ichihashi on the run.

JT hasn't posted the gruesome details, but Sankei Shinbun did and they are unbelievable.

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I hope the same, timorborder. Murder is gruesome and horrible no matter who it happens to. I hope they find the ones who did this and the media covers this more as well.

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timorborder; "missing white woman syndrome"

I guarantee you only started using that since you looked at the Lindsay Ann Hawker wiki page and followed the link included (me too, if I am honest!)

It is a good point though; this case is arguably more f-d up than the Lindsay one, so it better get as much response.

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Altria at 01:06 PM JST - 11th November

Having this case unsolved disturbs me far more than having Ichihashi on the run.

JT hasn't posted the gruesome details, but Sankei Shinbun did and they are unbelievable.

It's too bad I miss reading that article, it would have given me more hatred and rage against this scumbag who did this to the poor girl.

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I'm in agreement with most of the posts here. The police better be in full force looking for the person who commited this heinous crime. One murder suspect has been apprehended, but we shouldn't forget that there are other psycho killers out there and other victims with grieving families. (And again, I wish the article could just simply say, 'They are continuing to look for her remains' rather than mentioning body parts.)

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Hope Cops can find a good evidence trace to the murderer soon. I can't imagine what the hell this person used to have in the brain to end up to this kind of crime, sickness might not be the right word ... but what is wrong in the actual Japanese family values with also seen many family related crimes - son-parents, etc.

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Very Sick Evil Bastards!! Need to be put into the Gas Chamber I reckon!

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This is just getting worse!! I hope they catch the filth that did this and subject him/her to the same punishment (but of course that wont happen realistically!) that he/she dished out to this poor girl! I feel for the family - this must be horrifying!!

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The police in Shimane Prefecture are taking this quite seriously and have mobilized all available resources to find the murderer(s). And well they should. This was an absolutely unfathomable crime, both in its senselessness and brutality. No one deserves to die the way Miyako Hiraoka did -- except perhaps, ironically, the killer himself.

Quite honestly, I don't really see any remarkable lack of outrage in this case -- at least not on the part of those for whom this crime bears greater significance. I’m talking about the people of Hamada City, and the residents of Shimane who send their sons and daughters to this university ostensibly for an opportunity at a better life. I assure anyone here that the people of Shimane Prefecture – local and ex-pat alike -- are more than sufficiently shocked and angered by this crime.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I feel it more anger at this crime that probably more I feel it more keenly because some of my former students are now college students in the very city this woman was abducted from, students for who I possess a great deal of vested interest in their wellbeing.

And I would attribute their strong reactions to the very proximity of this crime in relation to their lives. They can identify with the victim n a way that no one from Tokyo, Osaka, or even neighboring Hiroshima, in no small part to it having happened in their own backyard. I don’t think anyone would argue with on that point.

This is not at all unlike the reaction of the foreign ex-pat community in response to Lindsay Hawker’s murder. It happened in our own backyard, so to speak. Yes, it’s a rather broad yard, to be sure, but it’s one in which we can personally identify with Ms. Walker in a way that reveals the statistical thunderbolt that it could just as well have been any one of us lying in that bathtub.

After all, how many English-speaking ex-pats out here do private eikaiwas? How many of us tend to be part of a very small contingent of Western English-speakers in our given community? And how many of us, for better or worse, manage to become part of the informal network of "local gaijin" in a given area, mingling social, professionally, and by sheer happenstance on a regular basis? Odds are high that in any given metropolitan area in Japan, the average gathering of Western foreigners will see at least one representative from two or more of the following: JET, Interac, Altia, Nova, Aeon, ECC, or any of the handful of other major English education-related employers out there that employ the vast bulk of us.

When something like this happens, yeah, we take it a little harder than we would take the murder of, say, a taxi driver in Osaka getting his throat cut by some selfish a-hole. It doesn’t mean we don’t care at all. It just means we can't identify with that taxi driver the same way we do with someone who shares some sort of common thread or experience in our lives. That taxi driver isn't part of our close and immediate world. Lindsay Hawker, however, was. And so we feel her death and the elation at seeing her killer being apprehended a little more keenly than we would that of those outside of our particular circle.

It isn't right. It isn't wrong. It's just part and parcel of being the group-oriented human beings that we all are. And she was killed in our own backyard. So how about we let up on the "missing white woman syndrome" bit, because definitively, it doesn’t apply to this story or the justifiable reaction of the ex-pat community at all.

Meanwhile, 120 police officers are scouring the Western Shimane mountains in the hopes of finding and arresting a particularly vicious killer. When these 120 officers go home to their families at night, you can be sure this isn’t a crime that’s receiving muted reaction from those in the community to whom this matters.

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Here in Miyazaki MRT ran this story for 15 minutes. I hope this animal (or animals) are caught soon.

Regardless of the race of the victim, it really touches me deeply thinking of the pain the family grieves for their loved one.

I don't think I could live another day if my daughter or wife were killed. Whether like Lindsay Hawker or Miyako Hiraoka. May both families find their peace. Sorry for typos, I'm have tears welling.

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There is a very sick puppy on the loose, people need to be extra vigilent.

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LFRAgain-- I totally agree with you. One just hopes that the outcome of this horrific tragedy won't end with it being shuffled into the cold case files because the sick person who did this managed to get away. And I hope the updates keep coming, sparse as they may be.

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LRFAgain - Hear hear! You've expressed it beautifully. Though I'd also like to add that, at least from my point of view, a great deal of the outrage around the Lindsay Hawker case was less about the murder itself and more about the fact that Ichihashi was able to escape from his apartment, shoeless, dodging around a bunch of slackjawed Jcops, while Ms. Hawker's body mouldered in a bathtub full of sand on his porch. The furor was spurred by disbelief in the international community over the utter incompetence of the police who failed to apprehend Ichihashi despite having him and the body in their possession. I won't deny that it would have never played so largely in the international media if Ms. Hawker had not been a Westerner, and certainly not if her family hadn't kept pressing Japanese law enforcement to find Ichihashi and bring him to justice. But I think the outrage in the Hawker case was (and is) completely justified.

That being said, I echo the feelings of other posters here that this poor girl's murder should meet with equal attention in the Japanese media. So often when we hear murders reported in Japan it's been perpetrated by a family member, a friend, an ex-lover, a stalker, or someone else who is identifiable. Frequently, the killer turns him- or herself in to police without a fight (something I must admit I'll never understand -- if you're going to feel enough remorse to turn yourself in, just don't commit the crime in the first place).

But in the case of Hiraoka, the killer is a complete unknown. He (or she) could be anybody. What if it's a serial killer? What if Hiraoka-san is his latest victim? Or worse, what if she's only the first? So yes, there should be outrage, but I think a lot of what you'll see reflected in the media is fear. In addition to being horrific, chilling, and gruesome, Hiraoka-san's murder is, quite simply, frightening. It will remain so until a credible suspect has been identified, arrested, and proven guilty.

I don't have much hope for the Jcops' chances of recovering more remains; at least not in good condition. Scavenging wildlife and weather conditions have probably ravaged whatever hasn't yet been found.

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LFRAgain: Excellent post. I was just thinking the same thing. It's only natural that when something hits close to home we have stronger reactions and emotions.

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Quite eerie, but from day 1 I just remember Sakakibara Seito. He's around 26 by now and released into society which should not be. How could a boy at 14 behead another boy? Now what could he been doing? I utmostly wish he is rehabilitated. I feel for little ladies who dreamed of finishing college without selling their bodies. What a sad lost!

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