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  When no news of the murder came to light, even after several days had passed, the defendant asked Chen-yi to help him find another job. Chen-yi suggested that the defendant join him at the pachinko parlor, an offer the defendant declined, saying the establishment was too noisy. Chen-yi promised to continue looking on the defendant’s behalf.

  Item 6: The Discovery of Hirata’s Body and Subsequent Circumstances

  Hirata’s body was discovered ten days after the crime on June 15 when the occupant in the neighboring apartment, a Korean national, reported an offensive odor to the building owner. The owner went to the apartment to investigate and found the door unlocked. When he entered the apartment he found Hirata’s corpse. She was clad only in a T-shirt, a light blanket covering her head.

  Decomposition had already set in, but it was still possible to discern unusual marks on Hirata’s throat and blood had pooled in the soft tissue of her neck region and the membrane along her thyroid gland. When the news of Hirata’s death broke, the defendant realized he would not be able to return to the Shangri-la to collect his back wages. And fearing the necklace he had stolen would link him to the crime, he hid it in the pocket of one of his suitcases. Finally, worried about running out of money, he went back to Chen-yi and told him he would take any job he could find.

  Chen-yi introduced the defendant to a part-time job as a janitor at the love hotel Dreamer, located at 1 Honmachi in Kichijji, Musashino City. The defendant accepted the job and began work from July of that year.

  OVERVIEW OF THE PROSECUTION’S OPENING ARGUMENTS: COUNT NO. 2 OF THE INDICTMENT

  Item 1: The Victim Kazue Sat

  The victim, Kazue Sat (hereafter Sat), was born April 4, 1961, the eldest daughter of Yoshio and Satoko Sat. Yoshio was employed by G Architecture and Engineering Firm. When Sat was in her first year of elementary school, her family moved from miya in Saitama Prefecture to the Kita-Karasuyama area of Setagaya Ward, Tokyo. Sat attended local elementary and middle schools, advanced to Q High School for Young Women, and from there entered the economics department of Q University.

  Sat’s father died when she was in her sophomore year of university, and as a result Sat had to take part-time jobs as a tutor and cram school instructor in order to pay her tuition fees.

  Sat graduated from Q University in March 1984 and was employed in April by G Architecture and Engineering Firm, where her father had worked. As the largest firm in the industry, G was known for close relations among employees, earning the nickname G Family Company. Moreover, the company actively recruited the children of employees. When Sat, who had a distinguished university record, entered the company as a member of the General Research Department, she was the first woman to be assigned such a high position, and her future with the company held great promise.

  In 1985, Sat was promoted to the position of assistant manager of the research office. This office is responsible for analyzing economic factors affecting construction, developing new analytical software programs, and so forth. Sat mostly conducted research on the economic effects of high-rise buildings. Her work was valued highly by others in the firm, and she was dedicated to her job.

  However, she did not socialize with her superiors or colleagues after hours and, because she had no close acquaintances within the firm, no one really knew what she did after work. Sat never married. She lived with her mother and a younger sister. After her father died, Sat provided the main financial support for the family.

  In 1990, when Sat was twenty-nine, she was sent provisionally to an engineering research laboratory affiliated with G firm. At this time she was hospitalized for anorexia. Sat had been diagnosed with and treated for anorexia when she was a sophomore in high school. In May 1991, Sat began to work part time as a hostess at a club in the evenings after work. In 1994, she started meeting men in hotels for compensated sex; finally, in 1998, she became a full-fledged prostitute working out of the Shibuya area.

  Yuriko Hirata, the victim named in Count No. 1, and Kazue Sat both attended Q High School for Young Women, but they were in different classes and did not interact with each other either during or after their years in the school.

  Item 2: The Defendant’s Personal Circumstances as They Relate to the Present Case

  After the commission of the crime described in Count No. 1 of this indictment, the defendant resigned his jobs at both the tavern, Shangri-la, and the flophouse, Futomomokko, and took up employment at the love hotel in Musashino City known as Dreamer. However, he did not change his domicile and continued to live at 404 Matoya Building, 4–5 Murayama-ch in Shibuya. Other than the aforementioned Dragon, Huang, and Chen-yi, two other Chinese nationals, by the name of Niu-hu and A-wu, stayed at the apartment from time to time.

  The defendant worked at Dreamer every day of the week but Tuesday, from noon to ten at night, cleaning the guest rooms, washing the linens, and doing other menial tasks.

  When he began working in 1998 he was industrious and dependable, but in the following year his attitude toward work gradually changed. He would arrive late and leave early and frequently missed work altogether. Cleaning the guest rooms was a two-person assignment. The defendant’s behavior affected the work rotation and inconvenienced his partner, an employee from Iran, who lodged a complaint against him. Moreover, the defendant was written up for taking naps in the guest rooms; pilfering soap, shampoo, and towels; watching adult videos in the rooms; and other such inappropriate behavior.

  In February of the same year, a local resident reported seeing the defendant take the condoms the hotel supplied its guests, fill them with water, and hurl the water-filled condoms from a hotel window at the cat owned by the sushi shop next door. At that point the hotel owner first considered terminating the defendant.

  At that time the defendant earned an hourly wage of ¥750 yen for an average monthly salary of approximately ¥170,000. He received no additional allowance for transportation costs. The defendant, whose income had been reduced in comparison to what he had earned while working at the Shangri-la, began to borrow from his apartment mates. He borrowed ¥100,000 from Dragon, ¥40,000 from Huang, and ¥60,000 from Chen-yi. He told them his mother had been hospitalized back in China, and he had to send her more funds.

  He also borrowed from Niu-hu and A-wu, who occasionally stayed over in the cramped apartment. And he continued to receive rent from Dragon and the others as before. Consequently, the relations between the defendant and his boarders grew progressively worse. Even Chen-yi, with whom the defendant had been on relatively good terms, grew embittered when the defendant lost his standing with his employers at Dreamer. Chen-yi had been the one to introduce the defendant to his employers.

  On March 25, 2000, Dragon, Huang, and Chen-yi, knowing it was the defendant’s payday, decided to press him to return the money he had borrowed from them. The defendant had planned to pay each man half the sum he had borrowed but, because the three knew he had over ¥240,000 in cash in a locked suitcase, they refused to accept his terms of repayment. They also argued with him for extorting so much rent from the three of them.

  Under pressure, the defendant had no choice but to accede to the new terms his boarders presented. He agreed to pay a total of ¥200,000 back to the three men to cover the money he had borrowed and an additional ¥50,000 each to cover the past disparity in rent. The defendant had to resort to his Dreamer salary and the money he had until then been hoarding.

  As a result, the defendant had only ¥60,000 left, which he had to stretch over the rest of the month, until his next paycheck. The hardship this imposed further weakened his relationships with Dragon, Huang, and Chen-yi.

  About the same time, Chen, under whose name the apartment at 404 Matoya was being rented, had been pressuring the defendant to find another place to live. Beginning in January, Chen informed the defendant several times that he wanted him to vacate the apartment by mid-March. When the defendant complained that he had nowhere else to go, Chen offered to let him stay until the end of April. He also informe