Tsuyama massacre
| Tsuyama massacre | |
|---|---|
The aftermath of the Tsuyama massacre | |
| Location | 35°9′32.60″N 134°02′3.32″E / 35.1590556°N 134.0342556°E Kamocho Yukishige, Kamo, Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture, Empire of Japan |
| Date | 21 May 1938 1:30 a.m. – 3:00 a.m. |
| Target | Villagers |
Attack type | Mass murder, mass shooting, mass stabbing, murder–suicide |
| Weapons |
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| Deaths | 31 (including the perpetrator and the perpetrator's grandmother) |
| Injured | 3 |
| Perpetrator | Mutsuo Toi |
| Motive | Revenge for sexual and social rejection and resentment towards neighbors |
The Tsuyama massacre (津山事件, Tsuyama jiken) was a mass murder-suicide that occurred on the night of 21 May 1938 in the rural village of Kamocho Yukishige close to Kamo, Tsuyama in Okayama, Empire of Japan. Mutsuo Toi (都井 睦雄, Toi Mutsuo), a 21-year-old man, killed 30 people — including his own grandmother — and seriously injured three others using a Remington shotgun, a katana, two daggers and an axe, before killing himself with the shotgun. It is the deadliest shooting by a lone gunman in Japanese history.
His suicide notes indicate revenge for social rejection and stigmatization due to tuberculosis as the motive for the murders; in May 1937, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and the young women in the village with whom he previously had premarital affairs all started rejecting his sexual advances.