OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture Evacuees eager to finally return to their homes near the hobbled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant have been thrown into confusion over the way evacuation orders will be lifted.
With hopes for a successful and safe Games, the Paralympic flame lighting ceremony was held in many parts of the Tohoku region on Aug. 12, starting the 12-day countdown to the Opening Ceremony.
Setsuko Miyazawa looks at “daruma” dolls given by Mitsuko Matsumori, a former police detective, in her house in Saitama on Nov. 30. (Nobuyuki Takiguchi)
SAITAMA One eye is left blank on each of the five “daruma” dolls lined up in the living room of Setsuko Miyazawa’s house here.
The figurines were gifts from Mitsuko Matsumori, 66, who gave one every year after retiring from Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department.
Miyazawa, 89, and Matsumori have made a promise to fill in the blank eyes when police catch the person who killed Miyazawa’s son and his family 20 years ago.
As an MPD detective, Matsumori was involved in the murder investigation for 16 years until she turned 64. Over those years, she also supported the bereaved family, and continues to be there for Miyazawa on a personal level.
Setsuko Miyazawa gives a prayer to her son’s family in front of their grave in Niiza, Saitama Prefecture, on Dec. 30. (Toshiyuki Hayashi)
Setsuko Miyazawa visited the house of her son’s family in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward earlier this month, but again she could not enter.
Instead, she waited outside, stared at the two-story house and then vented her frustration over the fact that the person who murdered the family of four in their home 20 years ago still has not been caught.
“There are many leads,” Miyazawa, 89, said. “Why can’t it be solved?”
More than 282,000 police officers have been assigned to the investigation at one time or another, and articles of evidence were left at the scene by the attacker. But Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department does not have a suspect in the murders of Mikio Miyazawa, 44, his 41-year-old wife, Yasuko, and their two children, Niina, 8, and Rei, 6.