On Nov. 27, 11 days after 58-year-old Keiko Miura and her two preschool grandchildren went missing from Miura's home in Kagawa Prefecture, and the same day Miura's brother-in-law Masanori Kawasaki was arrested for their murder, the online Ohmy News service compared the coverage of the incident to that of Suzuka Hatakeyama, the woman from Akita Prefecture who is now on trial for the murders of a 7-year-old neighbor and her own 9-year-old daughter in 2006.
In both cases, several dozen news people camped outside the homes of the only principals involved who would talk to them. In Akita it was Hatakeyama herself, and in Kagawa it was 43-year-old Kiyoshi Yamashita, the son-in-law of Miura and father of the two missing girls.
It's unusual for relatives of crime victims to talk to the press directly, but Yamashita was not only willing to be interviewed, he also allowed his face to be filmed. The media took full advantage of the opportunity.