On Aug. 30, 1967, a carpenter was found strangled to death at his home in the Fukawa district of the town of Tone, Ibaraki Prefecture. He had been robbed of ¥100,700. In October that year, two men — Mr. Shoji Sakurai and Mr. Takao Sugiyama — were arrested as suspects.
During the interrogation by investigators, the two men confessed to the murder-robbery. In the trial at the Tsuchiura branch of the Mito District Court, the two insisted that the confessions were made under coercion by investigators and denied their involvement in the crime.
Nonetheless, the court found them guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment in October 1970, on the strength of their confessions and eyewitnesses' accounts. The Supreme Court finalized their sentences in 1978.