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 |
|
| 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[1] — 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.[2]
Background
The massacre was carried out in the small village of Kamocho Yukishige close to Kamo,Tsuyama in Okayama, now part of the city of Tsuyama. The village's population at the time of the massacre was 111 people in 23 households.
Perpetrator
Mutsuo Toi (都井 睦雄, Toi Mutsuo; 5 March 1917 – 21 May 1938) was born in Kurami,Tomata District, Okayama Prefecture to a well-off rural family. His parents died of tuberculosis when he was a baby and he and his sister were brought up by their grandmother. Toi was a good student in primary school and was originally an outgoing boy, but did not go to middle school due to objection from his grandmother, who was quite strict with her grandchildren socializing with outsiders. After his sister got married and left the household in 1934, 17-year-old Toi became socially withdrawn.
In May 1937, shortly after graduating, Toi contracted pleurisy and was barred from agriculture work by his physicians. In that same year, Toi was conscripted due to the Second Sino-Japanese War, but was graded "C" (unfit) due to his tuberculosis. His previous lovers then started rejecting him.
Dejected, he lost interest in further education and became interested in the story of Sada Abe, a prostitute who infamously strangled her lover and then severed his genitals in May 1936. He had started writing a novel, Yūtokaiōmaru (雄図海王丸), which he used for storytelling to other children. He also took part in "Yobai" (夜這い) or "night-crawling", an illegal but persistent rural custom which involved young men creeping into young women's bedrooms during the night to seek sexual intercourse.[3]
Toi acquired a hunting license and a double-barreled shotgun, which he sold the following year to obtain a five-shot 12-gauge Remington M11 shotgun, under the excuse of culling wild beasts. He would head into the mountains to practice shooting during the day, and wander around the village at night openly carrying his gun, often startling his neighbors. When he attempted to slip her prescribed medicine into his grandmother's miso soup -- she had been stubbornly refusing to take it -- she called the police accusing him of trying to poison her. Despite being cleared of the suspicion, the police took the opportunity to confiscate his gun and hunting knives, and revoking his license. However, Toi managed to acquire another second-hand Remington shotgun, more daggers and knives, and a katana from sword collectors illegally.
Massacre
It is uncertain why Toi chose the night of 21 May, 1938 to commit the killings. He held a grudge against two of his ex-lovers, with whom he had sustained affairs out of their wedlock, and they had just returned to their hometown to visit family; it might be Toi decided impulsively to enact revenge due to opportunity.
Toi cut the power line to the village on the evening of 20 May, causing an outage that plunged it in darkness. At around 1:30 a.m. on 21 May, he killed his 76-year-old grandmother in her sleep by decapitating her with an axe.[4] Armed with the axe, a katana, two daggers,A Remington M11 shotgun (which he had modified into an extended tube that could hold nine shells instead of five) and 200 rounds of ammunition,[5] he strapped two flashlights to his head and prowled through the village, entering the homes like he had done previously during his "night-crawling" or "Yobai" (夜這い).
In a shooting spree that only took about an hour and a half, Toi killed 29 people (27 of whom died at the scene; 2 fatally wounded later succumbed to their injuries)[3] and seriously injured three others. At dawn, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest on a nearby mountain.[6][7]
Suicide notes
Toi left several long suicide notes which revealed that he struggled with the social impact of his tuberculosis diagnosis, which in the 1930s, was an incurable illness. He felt that his female acquaintances (especially his former lovers) became cold towards him once his illness was outed, that he was despised as hypersexual, and felt insulted and ill-treated. In planning his murderous revenge, he waited for the moment when the most targets were available, but also expressed regret as to not being able to kill some people he had wanted to, as that would have involved killing people he regarded as innocent. He killed his grandmother because he could not bear leaving her alive to face the shame and social stigma that would be associated with being a "murderer's grandmother".
Films
The 1983 Japanese film, Ushimitsu no mura (Village of Doom), was based on the massacre. It stars Masato Furuoya as Tsugio Inumaru, an emotionally distraught young man who goes on a violent killing spree after his tuberculosis keeps him from serving in World War II.
- Fukushûki, 1969 (Vengeance Demon) (復讐鬼)
- The 8-Tomb Village, 1951
- The 8-Tomb Village, 1977
- The 8-Tomb Village, 1996
See also
- 2009 Collier Township shooting
- 2014 Isla Vista shooting
- 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting
- 2018 Tallahassee shooting
- 2018 Toronto van attack
References
Notes
- ^ 理不尽な凶行、遺族ら「無念」…秋葉原無差別殺傷事件 (in Japanese). Sports Hochi. 9 June 2008. Archived from the original on 13 June 2008. Retrieved 13 June 2008.
- ^ "19 killed in Tokyo: A look at Japan's mass killings". The Indian Express. 2016-07-26. Retrieved 2024-10-07.
- ^ a b 津山事件 (in Japanese). 無限回廊. Archived from the original on 26 May 2008. Retrieved 13 June 2008.
- ^ "The List: The World's Worst Shooting Rampages". foreignpolicy.com. Archived from the original on 29 April 2007.
Mutsuo Toi, a 21-year-old from a wealthy family, had been shunned by women and rejected from military service for having tuberculosis. Finally one night, he snapped. He cut the electricity to his village, bound two flashlights to his head, and shot or stabbed nearly half of the small community over the course of 90 minutes before then shooting himself at dawn. Before embarking on his rampage, he decapitated his grandmother with an ax. Aftermath: Toi left notes complaining of being ostracized for his disease. His bizarre attack has inspired at least four books, several films, and at least one play. Until 1982, his rampage was known as the world's worst massacre by a single individual.
- ^ 中時新聞網 (27 July 2016). "日本史上最大規模殺人案「津山三十人屠殺」 - 歷史". 中時新聞網 (in Chinese). Retrieved 2022-08-13.
- ^ "LUNATIC KILLS 27 IN JAPAN; Young Man Shoots Sleeping Men, Women and Children". The New York Times. 22 May 1938. Retrieved 22 April 2009.(subscription required)
- ^ 新, 小池 (21 June 2020). "21歳の青年が猟銃と日本刀で30人を襲撃……82年前の世界的事件「津山三十人殺し」とは". 文春オンライン. Retrieved 2022-08-13.
Bibliography
- O'Reilly-Fleming, Thomas, ed. (1996). Serial and Mass Murder: Theory, Research and Policy. Canadian Scholars Press. ISBN 1-55130-066-4.
- Tsukuba, Akira (2005). 津山三十人殺し―日本犯罪史上空前の惨劇 [The Thirty Murders of Tsuyama - An unprecedented tragedy in the history of Japanese crime] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ISBN 978-4-10-121841-0.