Episode 44: Sayama Incident

Black Torii — Japanese True Crime · Aug 14, 2026 · 15m

On May 1st, 1963, a sixteen-year-old girl walked home from school in a quiet city north of Tokyo, and never arrived. A ransom note arrived at her family's door that night. The police set up a trap to catch the kidnapper. He came. He got away. And three days later, the girl's body was found buried in a field. Under enormous public pressure, police needed someone to blame. They turned their attention to a neighborhood where people from Japan's most marginalized community lived. Within weeks, they had their man. The only problem is: he almost certainly didn't do it. Kazuo Ishikawa spent…