Gen Sekine

On the other hand, many of his peers avoided involving themselves too deeply with him due to his business practices, propensity to threaten customers and his friendship with local yakuza.

In addition, Sekine was a pathological liar who made many boastful claims to not only acquaintances and customers, but also to media interviewers with the aim of advertising his store.

One such lie concerned his missing pinky finger, which he claimed had been bitten off by a lion in Africa; in reality, it had been cut off by members of the yakuza for failing to pay debts.

A quiet but strong woman who loved big dogs, Kazama was studying to work as a land surveyor to help her father financially.

In order to prevent Sekine from wasting their money, Kazama faked their divorce and started living as his common-law wife, which allowed for her to be appointed the president of the company.

A bulldog breeder living out of a remodeled freight car in Katashina, Gunma Prefecture,[6] he first heard of Sekine after seeing him participate in a dog show.

Akio Kawasaki, a 39-year-old executive of an industrial waste treatment company in Gyōda, befriended Sekine after visiting the Africa Kennel to buy a dog.

At the time, Kawasaki was inclined by his brother to expand his business ventures into dog breeding, and so, he bought two Rhodesian Ridgebacks for ¥11 million.

[4] At the time, the Africa Kennel was in dire financial straits, prompting Sekine and Kazama to kill their client to avoid giving the money back.

On the evening of 20 April 1993, Kawasaki was invited to chat with Sekine in his station wagon, where he was served a drink laced with cyanide and was killed instantly.

As demanded, Yamazaki disposed of the body parts in the Usune River in Kawaba and of the burnt bones, ashes and personal items in Oze National Park.

Initially, they pretended to comply with the gangster's request and handed over a resignation certificate, and supplied drinks laced with strychnine to both Endo and Wakui.

[8] While driving on a deserted road along the Arakawa embankment, Wakui began convulsing violently, enough to crack the car's windshield, before dying.

However, because the store was having financial difficulties due to Endo's extortion and the construction of a new kennel, Sekine pleaded with Sekiguchi to become a shareholder of the business and invest in it.

Initially Sekine only planned to steal the money, but he realized that the shareholder lie would be revealed eventually, and if that happened, not only the investments by the price of dogs sold in the past (six Alaskan Malamutes, amounting to ¥9 million) may have to be returned.

On 22 September, the Saitama Prefectural Police arrested an acquaintance of Sekine, a former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) officer from Ōmama, on unrelated fraud charges.

[11] From January to February 1995, acting upon Yamazaki's confessions, the Saitama and Gunma police forces conducted a joint search centered around Kumagaya and Katashina.

Due to the fact some of the bones were burned at high temperatures, DNA testing was rendered impossible, but authorities managed to identify the victims through the leftover items.

His lawyer criticized the prosecution for not disclosing evidence or affidavits, while Kazama claimed that she had been threatened into submission to help dispose of the bodies and was not involved in the murders or dismemberments themselves.

[11] The Urawa District Prosecutor's Office said at a press conference that his wife's bail had been carried out through due process, denying the existence of any agreement.

When the prosecutor in charge of keeping Yamazaki as a witness appeared at trial on 19 July 1995, he admitted to allowing him to meet his wife, but continued to deny making an agreement with the accused.

While it was acknowledged that he was coerced, it was pointed out that he was not physically abused or kept under surveillance, was only verbally threatened, had many chances to contact authorities and participated in the crimes of his own initiative.

Closing arguments were held for four consecutive days from 10 and 14 October 10, with Sekine pleading for life imprisonment while Kazama asked to be found not guilty.

Concerning the Kawasaki and Wakui cases, while it was acknowledged that Sekine was the principal mastermind and murderer, it was also noted that Kazama willingly offered to participate in both crimes and was thus held equally as responsible.

After his release, Yamazaki was brought as a witness, but his testimony was considered ambiguous, except for criticizing the prosecutors, defense counsel and the legal system.

[8] On 14 February 2005, Kazama admitted to a degree that she was involved in dismembering the bodies of Endo and Wakui, and on 11 July the Tokyo High Court dismissed their appeal.

[3] In addition to these, there have been suggestions that other vanishings and suspicious deaths might have been Sekine's doing, but only the following three were reported on in the newspapers: The former JGSDF officer also claimed that he had helped dismember and dispose of the previous victims' corpses.

However, taking into account that eleven years had passed by then, the search was further complicated by the fact that the riverbed had been dried up after the demolition of the old Oshikiri Bridge in 1991.

In his book dedicated to the case, he noted that the yakuza and the truck driver who had disappeared in 1984 were friends of Sekine, and that the latter had a weird ritual of wrapping "venison" around bamboo sticks.

Kazama, who remains on death row, continues to assert her innocence, a claim supported by Yamazaki, who in turn says that Sekine had coerced them both into committing the crimes.