Kazuyoshi Miura (businessman)
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Kazuyoshi Miura (三浦 和義, Miura Kazuyoshi, born July 27, 1947 - October 10, 2008[1]) was a Japanese businessman, who was alleged to have been involved in the killing of his wife, Kazumi Miura.
Early life
Miura was born in Yamanashi Prefecture in 1947. After dropping out a high school in Yokohama, he was arrested for arson and served some years in a juvenile prison.
Attack on Kazumi Miura
Miura, a clothing importer who often traveled to the United States, was suspected of conspiring to kill his wife, Kazumi Miura (三浦一美, Miura Kazumi) on November 18, 1981, while visiting Los Angeles, California, United States. On that day an unknown assailant shot Miura in the right leg and his wife in the head while the two were in a Downtown Los Angeles parking lot. After the shooting, Kazumi Miura remained in a coma. She was flown back to Japan via a US Air Force hospital jet. She was blind, paralyzed, unconscious and subsisting on life-support machinery. She died almost a year to the day after the shooting. Kazumi Miura was the mother of a 13-month-old child. [2]
Miura said that street robbers killed his wife, and, while in the hospital, campaigned against violence in Los Angeles. Miura said that he would write letters to President Ronald Reagan and California governor Jerry Brown and ask the two to secure Los Angeles. The incident reinforced Japanese stereotypes about U.S. violence.[3]
Arrest and trial in Japan
In 1984, the Japanese magazine Shūkan Bunshun published articles which indicated Miura have been involved in the killing of his wife. The articles revealed that he took out a life insurance policy on his wife worth the equivalent US$1.4 million. In addition, an actress, who said she was Miura's lover, said that Miura asked her to kill his wife. Daryl Gates, the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department during the Miura incident, said that the department and Japanese police suspected Miura arranged to have his wife killed.[4][5]
According to then Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner LAPD homicide detectives did not believe that Miura was the perpetrator, but rather that the events had been a "vicious...street crime"[6]. However one officer, Jimmy Sakoda, head of the Asian Crimes Squad, did not share the homicide detectives' conclusions. He took his concerns to Reiner who then began working with Japanese prosecutors. Reiner has stated that were it not for Sakoda's persistence the case might have been relegated to the unsolved, or cold case files.[6]
Miura was convicted of the murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment in Japan in 1994. Four years later, the Tokyo High Court overturned the conviction and the resulting sentence, because they lacked any physical evidence and they weren't able to identify the sniper.[7] In 2003, the Supreme Court also acquitted him of the charge. Miura served 13 years in Japanese prisons; six years for assaulting his wife 1985 and seven more for his vacated 1988 murder conviction.
Under a 2004 California law, if convicted, the time already served will be credited against any potential sentence. If Miura had been acquitted in Japan, the US-Japan Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty would have barred their investigation.[8] Since that was not the case, US law enforcement was free to continue their investigation.
Arrest by the US authorities
California authorities learned that Miura frequently visited U.S. territory on business, and waited until he made a trip to the island of Saipan in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, where he was arrested on February 22, 2008. In Saipan he was awaiting extradition to California [9][10][11] A former Federal prosecutor notes that the 27 years since the crime could help Miura's defense, "witness memories don't get better with time," she said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune.[6] Finally he was determined to be a subject of criminal case and was sent to Los Angeles, Carifornia on October 10, 2008.[12] In the night of the day, he committed suicide by hanging.[13]
A 2004 episode of Law & Order entitled "Gaijin", dealt with many of the aspects of the case.[14] His case was compared to that of O. J. Simpson.[15]
References
- ^ "Accused Japanese businessman found dead". Associated Press. 2008-10-11. Retrieved 2008-10-11.
- ^ "Man Is Convicted in Japan of L.A. Murder". Los Angeles Times. 1994-03-31. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
- ^ "Man held over wife's 1981 murder". BBC News. 2008-02-24. Retrieved 2008-03-06.
- ^ "Japan businessman arrested in wife's 1981 killing." CNN. February 23, 2008.
- ^ "Japan businessman arrested in wife's 1981 killing." CNN. February 24, 2008.
- ^ a b c "Arrest warrant says Japanese businessman orchestrated wife's killing in Los Angeles". International Herald Tribune. 2008-02-26. Retrieved 2008-03-06. Cite error: The named reference "iht" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ "Miura case draws media frenzy". Los Angeles Times. 2008-03-02. Retrieved 2008-03-06.
- ^ "Conspiracy focus of Miura case". Yomiuri Shimbun. 2008-03-05. Retrieved 2008-03-06.
- ^ "LAPD Nets A Japanese Cold Case Killer". CBS. February 23, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-24.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Japanese man arrested on U.S. warrant for 1981 LA shooting". Mercury News. 2008-02-23. Retrieved 2008-02-25.
- ^ "Man again held in his wife's 1981 killing in L.A." Los Angeles Times. 2008-02-23. Retrieved 2008-02-24.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Slaying suspect Kazuyoshi Miura returns to L.A. in custody". Los Angeles Times. 2008-10-11. Retrieved 2008-10-11.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20081011p2a00m0na015000c.html
- ^ Law & Order Episode 14.22 "Gaijin" at IMDb
- ^ "Suspect's blog was the net that snared him". Los Angeles Times. 2008-02-29. Retrieved 2008-03-31.
External links
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