Blue Coat Man
|
Blue Coat Man (青ゲットの男, probably born 1871), also known as Blue Coat (青ゲット) is the perpetrator of Blue Coat Murder (青ゲット殺人事件) in Sakai, Fukui.
Biography edit
On February 12, 1906, at around 5:00 a.m., a man about 35 years old wearing a blue coat visited the wholesale store and told Murakichi Kaga, the watchman, that his neighbor's aunt had fallen ill and he wanted him to come. Kaga did not question the man's attire, as it was snowing heavily at the site at the time, and trusted the man and went along. Later, his mother, Kiku, and his wife, Tsuo, were taken from Murakichi's home by this same method. The man also tried to take out Murakichi's second daughter, who was two years old at the time, but before Tsuo was taken out, she had asked a woman of her neighbor to stay and babysit, and the woman refused to the man to take her out.
It was later discovered that the three men who were taken out by the man did not return, and that none of their relatives in Shinpo Village had ever asked for a messenger, let alone that any of them had fallen ill. The police conducted a large-scale investigation along the Kuzuryu River and found blood stains on the slip of a small boat at Shinpobashi bridge moored in the Takeda River behind the Kaga house. Later, Tsuo's corpse was found at the bottom of the river a short distance or dragon from the small boat, and Kiku's corpse was found near the mouth of the Kuzuryu River the next day.
Since Murakichi's corpse was never found, the investigation team believed at the time that Murakichi was the main suspect, but the blood stains on the Shinpobashi bridge were too much for one person, leading to the conclusion that Murakichi was also murdered and dumped. Since the man targeted the Kaga family, the investigative team deduced that the crime was committed by someone with a strong grudge against Murakichi, but since Murakichi had a serious character and a good reputation, the culprit was never found and the statute of limitations expired in 1921. At last, the identity of the man remained unknown.
Confession of Ninzaburo Tanimoto edit
On December 12, 1926, Ninzaburo Tanimura was arrested for theft in Kyoto. During interrogation by police, Tanimura confessed that he was the man in the blue coat. Although this confession was discussed in the newspapers at the time, there were discrepancies between Tanimoto's confession and the man in the blue coat's actions and characteristics, as well as some of Tanimoto's testimonies in other cases. Also, because of the number of statements in other incidents in which Tanimura testified, he was not ultimately determined to be the man with the blue coat.
Trivia edit
- Aka Manto, one of Japanese urban legends, is spread because of this incident.