On this date in 1970, Japanese serial killer Akira Nishiguchi was hanged for murder.
Born in 1925, Nishiguchi (English Wikipedia entry | Japanese) spent the war years in juvenile detention but emerged in time to work as an interpreter for the U.S. occupation.
He was arrested repeatedly (Japanese link) as a con man during the 1950s. Police had him pegged as a nonviolent serial fraud artist, but in 1963 he killed two drivers to steal from them, then went on the run in Tokyo.
For 78 terrifying days, his face — those fraud convictions came with fingerprints that identified him as the killer — gazed out of wanted posters as Nishiguchi scraped by in cheap hotels and desperate disguises, committing three more murders in the process. Finally, an 11-year-old girl recognized him, posing as a lawyer.
Nishiguchi is the subject of the 1979 Shohei Imamura film Vengeance Is Mine. (Review | Another)
On this day..
- 1994: Raymond Carl Kinnamon, filibusterer
- 1903: A day in the death penalty around the U.S. (and Canada)
- 1747: Serjeant Smith, deserter
- 1981: El Mozote Massacre
- 1812: John Rickey but not Benjamin Jackson
- 1895: Harry Hayward, the Minneapolis Svengali
- 1876: Basilio Bondietto
- 1861: Christopher Haun, potter and incendiarist
- 2006: Two Egyptians who just wanted to watch the game
- 1831: Gen. Jose Maria Torrijos y Uriarte and his liberal followers
- 1917: Thirteen black soldiers of the 24th U.S. Infantry Regiment
- 1962: Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin