Photo/Illutration Police officers check confectionery sold at a store in Tokyo in October 1984 after perpetrators behind the Glico-Morinaga case claimed they had placed poisoned sweets on store shelves. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The 10-year-old boy was approached by a stranger while walking home from school with his classmates.

“I’m studying voices at university,” the man said. “Will you help me?”

The boy, now an adult, remembers how he alone was handed a microphone and asked to read aloud from a prepared text.

It may sound like something out of a novel, but this episode was recounted by my interview subject as a painful childhood experience.

The stranger who recorded his voice was a police officer, who also asked the boy’s schoolteacher, “Does his voice match that in the recorded extortion message?”

The officer’s actions were part of the investigations into the Glico-Morinaga case, said to be the largest unsolved crime of the Showa Era (1926-1989).

In the 1980s, a group that called itself “Kaijin 21-menso” (Monster with 21 faces) placed poisoned sweets on store shelves and blackmailed several food producers, using young children to record its demands.

“Tsumi no Koe” (The Voice of Sin), a film now showing in theaters, was inspired by the crime, for which the statute of limitations expired 20 years ago.

Gen Hoshino and other cast members give impressive performances to portray the subsequent lives of the children whose voices were recorded.

My heart goes out to the victims for the torment they endured over the “guilt” they were forced to bear by callous, self-serving adults.

The boy mentioned at the start of this column was merely contacted by police during the investigations.

But rumors spread throughout his small-town community, and he acutely felt the eyes of people who suspected his involvement in the crime.

He was also bullied, became unable to go to school and ended up leaving Japan in his teens.

Thirty-six years after the incident, he is now a father and runs a small business in the Kansai region.

“It’s a cop-out to blame your predicament on someone else,” he said in the interview.

“I didn’t know a ‘man with fox eyes,’” he added, referring to the presumed appearance of one of the perpetrators, giving a broad grin that did my heart good.

Life has no statute of limitations, and the man, who as a youngster came under suspicion is living his life as best he can.

I sincerely hope that is also the case with those whose voices were actually used.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 9

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.