Kobe child murders
| Kobe child murders | |
|---|---|
Tank Mountain, where victim Jun Hase was murdered | |
| Location | Suma, Kobe, Japan |
| Date | 16 March 1997 (murder of Yamashita) 24 May 1997 (murder of Hase) |
Attack type | Child-on-child murder, double-murder, attempted murders, beheading, bludgeoning, strangling, stabbing |
| Weapons | Hammers, dagger, shoelaces |
| Deaths | 2 |
| Injured | 3 |
| Victims | Ayaka Yamashita, aged 10 Jun Hase, aged 11 |
| Perpetrator | Shinichiro Azuma (a.k.a. "Boy A" or Seito Sakakibara) |
| Motive | Thrill, sexual sadism |
| Convictions | Murder (2 counts) |
| Sentence | 6+2⁄3 years in juvenile detention |
The Kobe child murders (Japanese: 神戸連続児童殺傷事件, Hepburn: Kōbe renzoku jidō sasshō jiken) occurred in Suma, Kobe, Japan, on 16 March and 24 May 1997, when two children, ten-year-old Ayaka Yamashita (山下 彩花, Yamashita Ayaka) and eleven-year-old Jun Hase (土師 淳, Hase Jun) were murdered. Yamashita was fatally injured in a series of assaults on elementary school girls between February and March 1997 while Hase was abducted, strangled and mutilated before his severed head was left in front of a school.
The perpetrator, fourteen-year-old Shinichiro Azuma (東 真一郎, Azuma Shin'ichirō) used the alias Seito Sakakibara (酒鬼薔薇 聖斗, Sakakibara Seito) to write two messages to the public following the discovery of Hase's remains in May 1997, taunting police and threatening to commit more murders. Azuma was arrested in June 1997 and confessed to the murder of Hase. He also admitted to killing Yamashita and three additional attacks on schoolgirls.
As a juvenile offender, Azuma was prosecuted and convicted as "Boy A." His real name has not been officially released to the press because Japanese law prohibits publishing the identification, but his real name has been reported in some weekly magazines. Beginning in 2004, Azuma was released on provisional basis, with full release announced to follow on 1 January 2005. The murders and subsequent release of Azuma gained widespread attention from Japanese media and politicians.