Killing of the Hakamada Family (Hakamata Incident)

On 30 June 1966, a fire broke out at the home of an executive who employed Iwao Hakamada, a former professional boxer, at a Shizuoka-based miso manufacturer. According to Hakamada, he helped extinguish the fire and discovered the bodies of the executive, his wife, and their two children, all of whom had been stabbed to death. Approximately ¥200,000 in cash was reported stolen from the residence.

Hakamada was interrogated by police and arrested in August 1966. His lawyers later stated he was interrogated for a total of 264 hours over 23 days, including sessions of up to 16 hours, without water or toilet breaks, and that he was denied a confession. Police initially cited a small amount of blood and gasoline found on pajamas belonging to Hakamada. At trial, Hakamada retracted his confession, alleging he had been physically abused by interrogators to obtain it, and pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors later shifted their evidentiary basis to five pieces of bloody clothing recovered from a miso tank at the factory in August 1967, fourteen months after the crime, arguing the clothing belonged to the killer and matched victims' blood types. Supporters of Hakamada argued the case contained significant inconsistencies, including that the alleged murder weapon could not have inflicted the reported forty stab wounds without damage, that the clothing was too small for Hakamada, and that a "B" label cited by prosecutors as indicating size actually denoted color. Despite the trial court criticizing police interrogation tactics and discounting part of the confession, a three-judge panel convicted Hakamada and sentenced him to death on 11 September 1968. The conviction was upheld on appeal, including by the Supreme Court of Japan in November 1980.

Hakamada spent nearly 50 years on death row, much of it in solitary confinement, while his legal team pursued retrial requests beginning in 1981. In 2007, Norimichi Kumamoto, the presiding judge from the original trial, publicly stated he had doubted the confession's authenticity and believed Hakamada innocent. DNA testing conducted in 2008 and confirmed in later tests indicated that blood on the clothing evidence did not match Hakamada. In March 2014, the Shizuoka District Court granted Hakamada a retrial and ordered his immediate release, citing reason to believe evidence had been fabricated in the original investigation.

After further appellate proceedings, the Tokyo High Court ordered a retrial in March 2023. On 26 September 2024, the Shizuoka District Court acquitted Hakamada, 56 years after his arrest. Prosecutors declined to appeal, and the acquittal was finalized in October 2024. In 2025, a court awarded Hakamada compensation of 217,362,500 yen for his imprisonment. In September 2025, Hakamada filed a defamation suit against the Japanese state following remarks by the prosecutor general about the acquittal.