Prologue: Three Years After Japan's First Locked Room Murder
The man was murdered three winters ago in what is believed to be the first ever locked room murder in Japanese history. Fortunately, the murderer was caught quickly, and there was more than enough evidence to convict. The only problem was the impossible situation found at the scene.
Yes... an impossible situation. The crime scene was a true, perfect locked room, and no one from the police or the prosecutor's office could solve it. Therefore, it became the focal point of the case, and, naturally, the most contended issue at the trial.
“The existence of the locked room is not the most important issue,” went the argument of the prosecution. “The evidence leaves only one interpretation: the defendant was the murderer. Thus, the question of 'how did they do it?' is meaningless trivia. It happened, so obviously it was possible somehow. The impossible crime can not be used as a basis to support the defendant's innocence.”
The defense had a different opinion.
“In our country's court system, whether a crime is possible or not is of the utmost importance. The best example of this is the concept of an alibi. If a defendant had a perfect alibi, they would without question be acquitted. This is because it would be impossible for them to have committed the crime. The same is true with the locked room in this case – as long as the scene was a locked room, then the crime is impossible, not only for the defendant, but for any person in the world. In other words, the fact that the crime scene is a perfect locked room is the same as the defendant having a perfect alibi. To say 'well, they must have done it somehow' only in the case of a locked room obviously contradicts the precedent set in previous criminal cases.”
The unprecedented locked room trial itself went on behind locked doors in this manner, and eventually, the Tokyo District Court Judge ruled in favor of the defense. In other words, “Proof of non-resolution of a locked room is equivalent to proof of absence from the scene of a crime” – In light of the fact that it was impossible for the defendant to have committed the crime, they were found not guilty.
The second trial followed the first in acquitting the defendant, and the prosecution's appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected.
The decision sent shockwaves through the public. How mater how suspicious you were, as long as the crime scene was the far side of a locked door, your acquittal was guaranteed. One could say this was the moment the judiciary recognized the value of the locked room. “There's no point to doing it in real life” – that precedent was reversed, and the locked room mystery, that common fiction trope so looked down upon for its unreality, was now preeminently practical.
This was the trivial “merit” of the case.
And the resulting “sin” was easy to understand. Within a month of the district court's ruling, four more locked room murders were committed. The month after came seven more. Locked rooms spread throughout society like a disease
*
In the past three years, the number of locked room murders committed totals three hundred and two.
That means 30% of the total number of murders committed in Japan in an average year are locked room murders.
Comments
Post a Comment