The acronym GUBU (grotesque, unusual, bizarre and unprecedented) fits the mass murder at the Teihoku Bank in Tokyo on Jan. 26, 1948. Sixteen people were deliberately poisoned, including an 8-year-old boy. More money was left behind than stolen.
While the incident has long been pored over in Japan, Triplett’s book was one of the first to explore the explosive case in English when it was published in 1985. Triplett, a journalist and playwright, stumbled on the case upon hearing about Sadamichi Hirasawa, a painter who was convicted of the murders and sentenced, but never executed. He lived out his life on death row. Hirasawa’s conviction was widely disputed.
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