PROFILBARU.COM

Norio Nagayama
Norio Nagayama
Born	Norio Nagayama; June 27, 1949; Abashiri, Hokkaido, Occupied Japan
Died	August 1, 1997 (aged 48); Tokyo Detention House, Katsushika, Tokyo, Japan
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Criminal status	Executed
Conviction(s)	Murder (4 counts)
Criminal penalty	Death
Details
Victims	4
Span of crimes	October 11, 1968 – November 5, 1968
Country	Japan
State(s)	Tokyo, Kyoto, Hokkaidō, Aichi
Weapons	Stolen Röhm RG-10 .22-caliber revolver
Date apprehended	April 7, 1969

Norio Nagayama (永山則夫, Nagayama Norio, June 27, 1949 – August 1, 1997) was a Japanese spree killer and novelist.

Biography

Nagayama was born in Abashiri, Hokkaido and grew up with divorced parents. He moved to Tokyo in 1965 and, while working in Tokyo's Shibuya district, witnessed the Zama and Shibuya shootings.

Nagayama killed four people with a handgun between October 11 and November 5, 1968. He robbed the last two victims of 16,420 yen (roughly equivalent in US currency to $46 at the time, or $150 now).^[1] He was arrested on April 7, 1969. When he was arrested, he was 19 years old and was regarded as a minor under Japanese law at the time.

The Tokyo District Court sentenced him to death in 1979, though this was overturned by the Tokyo High Court, which imposed a sentence of life imprisonment in 1981. The Supreme Court of Japan reversed the high court's decision in 1983. This ruling is today considered the landmark decision for the application of the death penalty in Japan. The high court on remand subsequently sentenced him to death in 1987, a decision which the Supreme Court upheld in 1990.^[2]

In prison, Nagayama wrote many novels and became a public figure. His first published work was Tears of Ignorance (無知の涙, Muchi no Namida) in 1971. In 1983, he was awarded a prize for the novel Wooden Bridge (木橋, Kibashi). The Japanese writing community was uneasy with his success, given his status as a convicted killer. He was rejected by the Japan Writers' Association but did receive recognition in Saarland, Germany in 1996.^[3]

On August 1, 1997, he was executed at the Tokyo Detention Center at the age of 48 by decision of Justice Minister Isao Matsuura,^{[citation needed]} just 34 days after the arrest of Seito Sakakibara, the 14-year-old perpetrator of the Kobe child murders. He made no final statement. A foundation to save poor people was established by his will.^[4]