Miyuki Ishikawa
Miyuki Ishikawa ( Japanese 石川 ミ ユ キ , Ishikawa Miyuki ; * 1897 in Kunitomi , Miyazaki Prefecture ; † unknown) was a Japanese serial killer .
Life
Much of Miyuki Ishikawa's early life is unknown. In 1897, in the southern Japanese city Kunitomi in Miyazaki Prefecture born, she attended the University of Tokyo and married her husband Takeshi Ishikawa after they had completed their studies.
She then worked as a midwife in the Kotobuki maternity hospital and became its director.
Series of murders
Abortion was illegal in Japan during this period of the Shōwa period, and many couples were unable to fund their children. So Ishikawa decided to kill children in the home she ran.
She let between 103 and 169 children die through neglect. The other midwives in the maternity hospital knew about this practice and the local authorities initially ignored the frequency of deaths. Several midwives also left the home.
Ishikawa's investigation and arrest
On January 12, 1948, however, two policemen from the Waseda district of Tokyo discovered the remains of five infants whose autopsy revealed that the children had not died naturally.
The police then conducted an investigation that led to the arrest of three people: Miyuki Ishikawa, her husband, and Shiro Nakayamas, a doctor who made fake death certificates for the children. A city-wide, intensive search led to the discovery of forty other children's corpses in an undertaker's house and thirty others buried under a temple.
Trial and sentencing
During the subsequent trial, the accused argued that the children's parents were responsible for their deaths. This was accepted as toddlers in Japan had almost no rights at the time. As a result, Ishikawa was sentenced to only eight years in prison. Her husband and Nakayama were both given four years in prison. Miyuki and her husband later succeeded in having their sentence halved.
literature
- William Webb: Murder Under the Rising Sun: 15 Japanese Serial Killers That Terrified a Nation. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013, ISBN 978-1-482-78196-0 .
Web links
- Ishikawa on Absolute Crime.com (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ishikawa, Miyuki |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 石川 ミ ユ キ (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese serial killer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1897 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kunitomi , Miyazaki Prefecture |
| DATE OF DEATH | 20th century |