The were committed by four members of the , a

yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media (by request of the police) call them , while the yakuza call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ''yak ...

gang based in Omuta,

Fukuoka is the List of Japanese cities by population, sixth-largest city in Japan and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancient times. ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The Kitamura-gumi was affiliated with the

Dojin-kai The is a yakuza organization headquartered in Kurume, Fukuoka, on the Kyushu island of Japan,

crime syndicate. The four were

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

for the murder of four people between 18 and 20 September 2004.

Summary

Mami Kitamura had borrowed money from a 58-year-old woman, Sayoko Takami. On 18 September 2004, Mami, her husband and two sons strangled Sayoko and shot her 18-year-old son Tatsuyuki and his 17-year-old friend Junichi Hara. They put the victims in a car, which they dumped into a river. On 20 September, they strangled Sayoko's 15-year-old son Joji, whose half-naked body was found on 21 September. When the police arrested Mami the following day, she confessed to the killing of the other three victims. The police found the car containing the bodies of the three victims in the Suwa River in Omuta. The other participants in the murders included Mami's husband Jitsuo Kitamura, the leader of Kitamura-gumi; Takashi Kitamura, her son from a previous marriage; and Takahiro Kitamura, her second son. Both Takashi and Takahiro were former

sumo is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a ''rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring (''dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by th ...

wrestlers, known respectively as and , with the family name Ishibashi. As police were closing in, Jitsuo made an attempt to kill himself with a handgun. Takashi escaped from the police, but was recaptured. Jitsuo insisted that he had committed the murders alone, but the police regarded Mami as the main offender. They were disruptive during their trials. On 17 October 2006, Mami and Takahiro were sentenced to death. Jitsuo and Takashi were sentenced to death on 28 February 2007. On December 25, the Fukuoka high court upheld the original sentence for Mami and Takahiro, and then Takahiro screamed in the court, "

Merry Christmas The Christmas season or the festive season, also known as the holiday season or the holidays, is an annual period generally spanning from November or December to early January. Incorporating Christmas Day and New Year's Day, the various celebrat ...

!" On 27 March 2008, the Fukuoka high court also upheld the original sentence for Jitsuo and Takashi.

References

Popular culture

* – 2010 book about the murder by ''Tomohiko Suzuki'' ** Death Row Family -2017 film based on the book

External links

Mob wife arrested for dumping body
''

The Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'' September 23, 2004
Mom, boys pulled from watery grave following yakuza wife's
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'' September 25, 2004
Arrest made over bodies found in river
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'' September 26, 2004
Murder suspect escapes unlocked interrogation room
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'' November 14, 2004
Mobster's wife, son to hang for four murders in 2004
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'' October 18, 2006
Mom, son's death sentences upheld
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'' December 26, 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Omuta murders Mass murder in 2004 Ōmuta, Fukuoka People murdered by the Yakuza 2004 murders in Japan Organized crime events in Japan September 2004 in Japan 21st-century mass murder in Japan Deaths by strangulation Child murder in Japan Murder trials Trials in Japan 2000s trials History of Fukuoka Prefecture History of Christmas