A pregnant woman, teenagers and family members… these were some of Yoshio Kodaira’s victims.
Kodaira was born in Tochigi, Japan in 1905. He was the son of a violent alcoholic, and as well as suffering from a severe stutter, was an underwhelming performer at school. His teacher described him as “inattentive and listless”, and was reputed to get into fights on a daily basis. When he left school, he went to work for a Tokyo metalworks and from there, drifted through a number of blue collar jobs, none lasting more than a few months at a time.
At the age of 18, he got a woman pregnant, but had no intention of sticking around to fulfil his paternal duties. No, instead he decided to join the Imperial Japanese Navy and was deployed to China where he took part in the Jinan Incident.
It was there that he started his gruesome slaughter started. Whilst he was there, aged 23, he not only killed six Chinese soldiers, but also quickly sank into complete and utter depravity. In one incident, he and four or five of his comrades entered a civilian’s home, tied up the father and locked him in a closet whilst they raped the women and stole their jewellery. It gets worse. In another incident at Taku Forts in northeastern China, he thrust a bayonet into the belly of a pregnant woman and pulled out the fetus, relishing in the depravity of his actions. Overall, it’s not actually known just how many civilian women he attacked and raped whilst he was out there.
By 1932 and now aged 27, he ended up marrying the daughter of a Shinto priest, against the wishes of her father. Their relationship was by all accounts a stormy one, and she ended up walking out on him upon discovering that he’d had an affair with another woman and had another baby by her. Furious that she had fled, he stormed over to her family’s house where an argument ensued, ultimately ending with him beating his father-in-law to death with an iron rod, and injuring six others on top.
He was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years labour following this, but laughably only served eight because he was amongst those who were released on amnesty in 1940. The reasoning behind the amnesty? To celebrate the anniversary of the empire.
Following his release, he found work as a civilian at a naval facility in Tokyo. Most of his colleagues were female, and it was noted he had a habit of spying on them whilst they bathed after work. In 1945 and now aged 40, his old habits were evidently back in full force as he started preying on his co-workers. On May 25 of that year, he raped and strangled 19 year old Miyazaki Mitsuko, and hid her corpse behind an air raid shelter. At that time, Japan was getting overwhelmed as the Allies were homing in from both sea and sky, keeping the Japanese police busy and therefore allowing Kodaira’s crime to go unnoticed. Exhilarated, he repeated this process a number of times but along the way took yet another step into depravity… by having sex with some of his victims’ corpses.
After running out of work colleagues to prey upon, he took to loitering around in the streets and waiting for women, offering to help them get whatever they needed from Tokyo’s black market. Two more women would fall into his trap before the police finally caught him — his known murder victim count was ten, all aged between 15 and 32. He also later confessed to raping at least thirty more women, of whom all survived.
What gave him away was his name. His last victim, 17 year old Midorikawa Ryuko, was someone who he’d struck up a friendship with, and subsequently ended up meeting her parents. He’d foolishly given his real name to them, so that when Ryuko disappeared and her naked corpse subsequently found at Zojo-ji temple…
the police knew exactly who they were looking for. Kodaira was apprehended and confessed to his crimes willingly and was sentenced to death in 1947.
Two years and two months later, he was hanged at Miyagi Prison.
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