was a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 rapist

Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

 and serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

. He killed one person in 1932 and was later sentenced to death

Capital punishment in Japan

Capital punishment is legal in Japan. The only crimes for which capital punishment is statutory are homicide and treason. Between 1946 and 1993, Japanese courts sentenced 766 people to death , 608 of whom were executed...

 after being convicted of killing seven others in 1945 and 1946.

Life as a soldier

Kodaira suffered from stuttering

Stuttering

Stuttering , also known as stammering , is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases, and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds...

 during his childhood. He joined the Imperial Japanese Navy

Imperial Japanese Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...

 in 1923. He participated in the Jinan Incident

Jinan Incident

The Jinan Incident or May 3rd Tragedy , was an armed conflict between the Japanese Army allied with Northern Chinese warlords against the Kuomintang's southern army in Jinan, the capital of Shandong in 1928 during the Kuomintang's Northern Expedition.-Background:During the Northern Expedition,...

. He killed six Chinese

Chinese people

The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

 soldiers in 1928, and raped many women in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. In Taku Forts

Taku Forts

The Dagu Forts , also called the Peiho Forts are forts located by the Hai River estuary, in Tanggu District, Tianjin municipality, in northeastern China. They are located 60 km southeast of the Tianjin urban center.-History:The first fort was built during the reign of the Ming Jiajing...

, he stuck a sword into the belly of a pregnant woman. The exact number of his victims in China is unknown.

First murder and trial

Kodaira married in 1932 after he returned to Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. His wife eventually left him because he had a child by another woman. He became angry and attacked his wife's household, killing his father-in-law and injuring six others with an iron rod on July 2, 1932. He was arrested, and was released in 1940.

Second murders and trial

He is believed to have raped and murdered 10 women between May 25, 1945 and August 6, 1946 in Tochigi

Tochigi

Tochigi can refer to:* Tochigi Prefecture, a Japanese prefecture* Tochigi, Tochigi, a city in Tochigi prefecture, Japan* Tochigi Station, a railroad station in Tochigi city, Japan.* Tochigi S.C., a Japanese soccer club...

 and Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. After the fifth murder, he committed necrophilia

Necrophilia

Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...

 with the corpse. His murder victims included teenagers. He also raped about 30 women in addition to his murder victims.

On August 20, 1946, Kodaira was arrested. He denied responsibility for three murders in the court, and the district court tried him for seven of his 10 suspected murders on June 18, 1947. One of the victims was never identified. The Supreme Court

Supreme Court of Japan

The Supreme Court of Japan , located in Chiyoda, Tokyo is the highest court in Japan. It has ultimate judicial authority to interpret the Japanese constitution and decide questions of national law...

 sentenced him to death on November 16, 1948.

Execution

He was executed on October 5, 1949. On his final day, he said "I am fortunate to be able to die on such a calm and peaceful day."

External links

• Weekend Beat: Tokyo writer returns to the scene of the crime Asahi Shimbun
  Asahi Shimbun
  The is the second most circulated out of the five national newspapers in Japan. Its circulation, which was 7.96 million for its morning edition and 3.1 million for its evening edition as of June 2010, was second behind that of Yomiuri Shimbun...
  
  , December 22, 2007 Yoshio Kodaira serial murders case