Masakatsu Nishikawa (serial killer)

On January 6, around 19:00, Nishikawa went to the 5th floor of a condominium in Daido, where he knocked on the first door he saw. When the homeowner, a 31-year-old office worker, answered the door, he lied to her that his mother and father-in-law were arguing and asked to stay with her for a while. He was allowed to stay inside for the next 16 hours, during which he watched TV and played videogames with the woman's 7-year-old son, even giving her 10,000 yen to buy him a toy sometime in the future. The woman eventually grew suspicious of him after he refused to leave, but still allowed him to stay.

Following the Supreme Court decision, Nishikawa and his team filed a total of 10 requests for a retrial, frequently responding to questionnaires by anti-death penalty activists and claiming that he was innocent of the crimes. His final request was dismissed on May 11, 2017, and his execution date set for July 18 of that year. On the aforementioned date, the 61-year-old Nishikawa was hanged at the Osaka Detention House; another murderer, Koichi Sumida, was hanged at the Hiroshima Detention House on the same day.

On June 7, 2005, Nishikawa (who had returned to his original surname) and his defense counsel filed for a final appeal trial before the Supreme Court, with presiding Judge Kunio Hamada. The attorneys demanded that their client be acquitted in the murders of Takahashi, Harada and Murakami, while the prosecutors demanded that the death sentence be maintained. Later that same day, Judge Hamada dismissed the appeal, finalizing Nishikawa's death sentence.

The decision was announced on June 20, 2001, with Judge Motoyasu Kawakami upholding the death sentence and dismissing the appeal. On that same date, the Supreme Court also rejected the appeal. Kanade was returned to the Osaka Detention House, where he would remain until his execution. In 2004, he began corresponding with American professor David T. Johnson, admitting to him in a letter that he was praying for the other death row inmates, and wished to be reintegrated back into society.

Immediately after the sentence, Nishikawa's defense counsel filed an appeal to the Osaka High Court, and on January 21, 1998, an appeal trial was held before Judge Michio Kakutani. In it, they argued that their client was drunk at the time of the first murder, and was not guilty of the follow-up crimes, requesting a psychiatric evaluation to be held. The closing arguments were held at the 15th court session on December 15, 2000, with Nishikawa pleading not guilty. A few weeks after this decision, Nishikawa changed his last name to Kanade, after the surname of a chaplain who had been visiting him in prison.

On March 19, 1995, the closing arguments from the prosecution were presented, along with a demand that the accused be sentenced to death. The proceedings were concluded on May 29, with Judges Yoshiki Matsumoto and Keiichi Taniguchi recognizing that evidence indicated in the latter three murders pointed towards Nishikawa's guilt, but his motive remained unclear. The judgment trial was held on September 11, and the presiding judge, Kaoru Matsumoto, pronounced the death sentence for Nishikawa. In his final statement, he pointed out that while material evidence was lacking in the Masaki murder, the convict's own confessions, as well as the results of a DNA expertise and the shoe imprints linking him to the crime scenes.

At another court hearing on July 28, 1994, Nishikawa's lawyer admitted that a majority of the 180 points regarding the confessions were likely truthful, but claimed that 12 of them (concerning two instances in which his client had supposedly admitted to all four murders, etc) were not voluntary, and had been extracted from him in a state of mental and physical fatigue.

At the fourth session held on December 21, Hanae Katsura appeared as a witness for the prosecution, testifying that she had been attacked by him and expressing her belief that while he had not planned to kill her, she still wanted the defendant to be punished harshly. A cross-examination was conducted at the Kyoto District Court on January 29, 1993, of a female employee working at the scene where Kyo Harada had been found, who testified about the situation inside the store before and after the crime, the presumed murder weapon, etc.

From January 1 to 5, 1992, Nishikawa hid in his apartment, spending most of his time either alone or chatting with an 80-year-old neighbor. On January 4, he bought himself new sneakers at a shoe store in Ebisuhigashi, and dumped his old ones in the trash next to the store, which were later taken to a processing plant in Suminoe-ku.

Nishikawa was soon after indicted by the other district courts and appointed a lawyer in each of them. However, it was determined that he would be incapable of paying the legal fees, and therefore, three public defenders from the Osaka Bar Association were assigned as his defense counsel. At this time, Nishikawa had begun denying all other crimes besides the attempted murder in Osaka, which would likely result in a lengthy and complicated trial. The Osaka District Public Prosecutor's Office thusly decided to send prosecutors to look into each and every case, and after reaching an agreement with all involved parties, it was officially decided that the case would be consolidated before the Osaka District Court on May 12, 1992.

On July 24, 1992, Masakatsu Nishikawa's first court session was held at the Osaka District Court, and presided by Judge Akira Nanasawa. He was charged with four murders and robberies, which he vehemently denied and gave conflicting explanations as to why. The prosecutors countered his claims with the accumulating circumstantial evidence, including his blood type matching that found at the crime scene where Takahashi had been killed and witness statements. On the other hand, no murder weapons were found in any of the cases, with his defense counsel arguing that no direct evidence pointed towards Nishikawa being the culprit in any of the individual cases.

At around 16:00 on December 11, 1991, Nishikawa stopped by the offices of the West Japan Railway Company, near Himeji Station, ostensibly to ask the clerk for directions. However, he then leaned over the counter, said that he was a "terrible human being", and then fled in a hurry; in the meantime, another clerk had reported the incident to the police.

After spending 158 days behind bars, Nishikawa was paroled from the Matsue Prison on June 19, 1984. For the next two months, he worked at a pachinko parlor in Matsue, using the local train station to travel back home to Tottori. On the night of September 10, Nishikawa, who had money problems, tried to rob an inn in Tottori, threatening the 58-year-old sister of the proprietor with a fruit knife, but was unsuccessful and soon arrested. In January 1985, he was convicted of attempted murder and robbery, and given a 7-year sentence at the Tottori Prison. During his detention, he frequently fought with cellmates, for which he later isolated and denied parole. Near the end of his sentence, Nishikawa was quoted as saying that "[he] doesn't want to be released because there is nothing [he] could about it". His term finished on October 25, 1991, and less than two months later, he would begin his killing spree.

Around 0:30 on July 6, 1974, the 18-year-old Nishikawa entered a store in Tottori and forced the 26-year-old female storeowner to lie down on the ground. The woman complied with his demand, but kept smiling and attempted to talk him out of it, which Nishikawa interpreted as her mocking him. In response, he turned her over and slashed her carotid arteries three times with a kitchen knife, killing her. He then stole her wallet containing 22,000 yen and fled, but was arrested and brought to the police station six hours later. He was later convicted of murder, attempted rape, theft, forgery and fraud, but was given an irregular sentence of 5-to-10 years imprisonment, as the prosecutor presiding over the case, Hideo Okano, believed that he would be rehabilitated in prison.

In May 1970, he was sent to a childcare facility in Yonago for stealing, where he was taught to read and write. By the time he left the facility, his father had sold the family home, forcing Nishikawa to search for work in Kyoto and Osaka, before returning to Tottori in October 1971. Upon his return, he was taken in by one of his sisters, but was soon after sent to a juvenile detention facility for several thefts. After being allowed temporary leave in October 1973, he worked for some relatives for a time, but eventually quit and filled his day by visiting pachinko parlors and movie theatres. During this time, he became acquainted with local delinquents and began stealing money and vandalizing property.

Masakatsu Nishikawa (西川正勝, Nishikawa Masakatsu, January 14, 1956 – July 13, 2017) was a Japanese serial killer who killed four snack bar hostesses and attempted to kill two others from 1991 to 1992 in three prefectures. An ex-criminal with a murder conviction, he was convicted of his latter crimes, sentenced to death and executed in 2017.

Masakatsu Nishikawa was born on January 14, 1956 in Tottori, the youngest of five children and the only son. His father was a day laborer who paid little attention to his children, as a result of which Nishikawa lived predominantly with his mother, as his sisters would go to the San'in region in winter to earn money for the impoverished family. In 1962, he enrolled in elementary school, but rarely attended due to frequent bullying, which prevented him from fully partaking in his studies. His life at home was difficult as well, as his father physically abused his mother, who in turn harshly disciplined and often beat him and his sisters. When Nishikawa was in the third grade, his mother, a diabetic who had repeatedly been hospitalized before, passed away.