Native name 木下 あいり Occupation Student Full Name Airi Kinoshita | Name Murder Airi Nationality Japanese | |
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Died November 22, 2005(2005-11-22) (aged 7)Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan | ||
Cause of death Murder by suffocation | ||
Murder of airi kinoshita japanese child girl
In 2005, Airi Kinoshita (木下あいり, Kinoshita Airi, April 10, 1998 – November 22, 2005), who was a seven-year-old first grade student from the Japanese city of Hiroshima, was sexually assaulted and murdered by Jose Manuel Torres Yake (born February 1972). He assumed the false name Juan Carlos Pizarro Yagi. Yake was wanted for a child sexual abuse charge at that time in Peru.
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Murder
An autopsy revealed that she had been murdered within 90 minutes of leaving school around lunchtime on Tuesday, November 22, 2005. She died of suffocation caused by pressure to the neck. A local resident spotted the tape-bound cardboard box in which her body was found in a vacant lot in Hiroshima's Aki Ward. The box had been used as packaging for an oven sold in Higashi. Police said they suspected her killer lured Airi away as she was walking home and strangled her soon afterwards. Her schoolbag was found alongside a road about 300 meters away. She had been carrying a so-called crime prevention buzzer but it was missing when her body was found.
300 people attended her funeral in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, her father Kenichi's hometown. The mourners included Ground Self-Defense Force members who served with her father, a soldier. "I was deeply shocked when I was told by police that she was probably murdered," her father said in an address during the funeral. "I feel animosity toward the person who committed the crime. I hope the culprit is caught soon."
Arrest and trial
Japanese police arrested Torres on November 30, 2005. He insisted that he was a Peruvian of Japanese descent. Before the arrest, the Japanese mass media suspected that the criminal was an otaku, but this proved to be false.
At first Airi's real name was reported in the Japanese mass media. However, when it was revealed that she had been sexually assaulted, the Japanese media stopped using her real name. Despite this, Airi's relatives wanted her real name to be reported. On June 26, 2006, her father Kenichi said:
After this speech, Japanese mass media resumed reporting Airi's real name. The speech made the name Airi Kinoshita famous in Japan.
On July 4, 2006, the Hiroshima District Court sentenced Torres to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting and killing the girl, citing his haphazardness. He had dumped the girl's body close to his apartment. Prosecutors appealed against the leniency of the sentence, demanding the death penalty. On December 9, 2008, the Hiroshima High Court reversed and remanded the original verdict. However, the Supreme Court of Japan demanded them to continue his trial. The Hiroshima High Court upheld the life sentence, resulting in the end of his trial because they had not submitted an additional appeal by August 12, 2010.
Reaction
Kinoshita's death caused parents to panic in Japan, which had been thought to be a "safe society".
Yake faced a child sexual charge in Peru, and so the incident also had influence on Latin America. A journalist, Kent Paterson, indicated him into debates of femicides in Latin America.