Editor's note: This is the second in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. 

In the wee hours of June 30, 1966, a fire razed a house in what is now Shizuoka city. In the ruins, the bodies of a manager of a miso manufacturer and three of his family members were discovered.

They all had multiple stab wounds in the chest and back.

Fifty days later, Iwao Hakamada, then 30, was arrested on suspicion of murder-robbery and arson.

Investigators confiscated his pajamas, stained with a small amount of blood, from his room.
Hakamada initially denied the accusations during police questioning. The interrogations lasted an average of 12 hours a day.

And on the 19th day after his arrest, he confessed to the crimes. He was later charged.

His very first letter to his family arrived a few months after his trial began in November 1966.

“I am sorry for making all my relatives worry about me. I truly have nothing to do with the Kogane miso incident. I am innocent.” (Around January 1967)

When the killings occurred, Hakamada had already retired from professional boxing and was working for the company, known for the Kogane miso brand, as a live-in employee.

His first letters from behind bars were written in pen on one or two sheets of stationery and addressed to his mother. He wrote to her regularly.

The letters featured a circular stamp showing that they were inspected by officials of Shizuoka Prison, where he was being held.

In the first hearing of his trial, Hakamada denied the charges, saying, “I didn’t do it at all.”

He wrote to his mother and described how much he missed his family while in custody.

“There is a daily calendar in my room, and it has a photo of an elderly woman looking at the sunset, with a child on her back. The photo reminds me of you and my son.” (Around January 1967)

On his son’s third birthday, Hakamada was “sorry as I could not do anything for my son.” On Respect-for-the-Aged Day, he expressed deep gratitude to his mother and cared about her health. “Please be careful not to catch a cold in your sleep,” his letter read.

Hakamada also described his life in prison. He said one of the things he looked forward were the baths, which were allowed once every four days. He also enjoyed playing catch for exercise.

He was determined to make the best use of his time in incarceration by learning as many things as possible.

His sister, Hideko, now 91, recalled that her brother did not sound desperate at the beginning because he believed in the judiciary.

“He was brutalized by police, but he had a strong faith in the courts,” she said. “So, he wrote in a sanguine tone in the initial months.”

In a letter written around March 1967, he explained his confession: “The prosecution argued that they have my statement confessing to the crimes. But it is a product of torture, not truth. There are no such facts as claimed by prosecutors.”

“I am convinced that judges will find me innocent. I refuse to lose.” (Around April 1967)

The turning point in his trial came in August 1967, one year and two months after the quadruple murder.

Five pieces of bloodstained clothing--a sport shirt, dark trousers, briefs, long underpants and a short-sleeved shirt--were found in a miso tank of the manufacturer’s factory near the crime scene.

At the beginning of the trial, the prosecution argued that Hakamada was wearing the pajamas found with a small amount of blood when he attacked the family.

But in the middle of the trial, they switched to a new theory: The clothes from the miso tank were actually the ones worn by Hakamada.

“Prosecutors asked me if the clothing with bloodstains belonged to the defendant. They looked somewhat similar to my clothes. But there are so many clothes in the world that look alike. … I swear that they are not mine.” (September 1967)

Hakamada explained that he always wrote his name on his clothes before taking them to the cleaners. So if the clothes used as evidence in the trial were his, they would have shown his name.

He added that the size of the clothing was different from his.

Four days after the killings, police mounted an exhaustive search at the factory for evidence. They uncovered nothing.

“The prosecution is trying to connect me to the newly discovered evidence. But it is clear that the evidence that was not found during the original search has nothing to do with my case.” (December 1967)

He continued to trust the system.

“Unless the court misunderstands the facts, I am confident that the court will find me innocent. … I await a ruling.” (Around July 1968)

But his world soon came crashing down.

In September 1968, the Shizuoka District Court convicted Hakamada of the crimes and sentenced him to death.

The court concluded that the five items of clothing were indeed worn by Hakamada during the attack, citing the discovery at his parents’ home of a piece of cloth whose fabric and dye were similar to those of the blood-stained trousers.

The court also said the type of blood left on all the clothes was B, the same as Hakamada’s, and that he changed into the pajamas somewhere after he killed the family members and set fire to their house.

A letter written soon after the court ruling conveyed his bewilderment.

“The ruling was not what I expected. It was based on a gross misunderstanding of the facts. So I immediately appealed the decision.” (Around September 1968)

After the district court ruling, Hakamada was transferred to the Tokyo Detention House, one of seven penitentiaries in Japan for those condemned to death.

After the transfer, the stamp on his letters indicating a screening by prison officials was changed to a shape of a cherry blossom.

Two months after his sentencing, Hakamada’s mother passed away. His father died five months after her death.

Hakamada expressed helplessness and fear about the looming execution.

“I am a prisoner on death row who has been wrongfully convicted. I am forced to live by enduring grief permeating all of my body. My heart sometimes grows cold beyond description out of unending fear of the unknown--execution. My whole body trembles as if being hit by cold winter blasts.” (November 1973)

Hakamada’s relatives had kept his mother’s death a secret for months. But he eventually noticed something was amiss in his correspondence with his mother.

“I learned of my parents’ death while in prison. … The court of first instance’s misjudgment took away the lives of my parents and denied me a chance to be at their deathbeds.” (May 1974)

In the appeal trial at the Tokyo High Court, the main point of contention was whether the trousers used as evidence belonged to Hakamada.

He was asked to try them on in three hearings, in 1971, 1974 and 1975. But each time, the pants were too small for him.

“There is absolutely no question that a man who cannot wear the bloodstained trousers is innocent.” (December 1975)

He also referred to the possibility that the evidence against him was planted.

“I must not pay the price for judges’ error with my life. … I have been framed by physical evidence fabricated by investigators and wrongfully convicted by the court of first instance. This flawed trial sent me to death row.” (December 1975)

The high court in May 1976 upheld the lower court’s ruling and death sentence, recognizing that the clothing in question was worn by Hakamada when he attacked the victims.

The high court accepted the prosecution’s theory that the trousers did not fit Hakamada because they had shrunk after being soaked in miso and because he gained weight while incarcerated.

The court also accepted the prosecution’s assertion that “tag B” on the trousers meant the pants were for an overweight individual, and that the defendant could have fit in the trousers before they shrank.

In 1980, the Supreme Court rejected his appeal, finalizing his death sentence.

However, a glimmer of hope emerged.

Exonerations for capital offenses have been extremely rare in Japan’s history of criminal justice. But the 1980s saw a string of death row inmates clear their names in retrials.

Hakamada continued to write from behind bars, conveying a mixture of anticipation and desperation.

(This article was written by Yuri Murakami and Ryuichiro Fukuoka.)

For details of Hakamada's trial and letters, check out https://www.asahi.com/special/hakamadaletters/en/