Miura Kazuyoshi: Death by Cowardice

The saga has ended. When Miura Kazuyoshi threw in the towel in Saipan and agreed to continue his legal battle in Los Angeles, nobody -- not prosecutors, not his defense attorneys, not the media, not this blogger, thought someone with an ego that big would take the cowardly way out and commit suicide rather than face justice. Read the news here and there.

I can't imagine what Miura Kazumi's family must be going through and any glimmer of hope in the Shiraishi Chizuko cold case has now been extinguished. Detectives Rick Jackson, Tim Marcia and Jimmy Sakoda did amazing jobs.

We'll never know if an American court would've found Miura guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, but I think his final act speaks for itself. Miura is dead, and with it「ロス疑惑」...

Update:

Kazumi's family released the following statement:

「がっかりした。言いたいことがあるならアメリカでも正々堂々と戦ってほしかった。これから真実が明らかになることを期待していたのに」

"We're very disappointed. If [Miura] had a case to make, we wanted him to fight fairly and openly in the US as well. We had expected the truth to finally come out..."


Now that things have ended in this way, I wonder if the evidence that was to be presented by prosecutors will ever be disclosed.


Further ironies:

- The holding cell where Miura took his own life was blocks from the scene of the original crime.

- The hospital where Miura was taken after being discovered hanged in his cell was where Kazumi was rushed after being shot.

- Prosectuors were in fact preparing to mount a case in the Shiraishi Chizuko case as well.


Also, author and ex-LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel links to my original post from his news page.


Update 2: Kazumi's family has released a full statement. I won't translate the whole text, but they talk about Miura's long history of crime, dating back to his teenage years, and how the Japanese justice system values the rights of criminals over victims (commonly heard in the US).

They of course express disappointment that the case is now seen as "closed" with Miura's death, but plea for "disclosure of the proof against Miura, so that we may know exactly what type of crime he committed." Without that, they say, "the spirits of Kazumi and Chizuko will never be at peace."

As this blog is predominantly about film, I originally considered mentioning "Nakagawa-esque visions of karmic retribution" when this news broke but thought it somewhat over-the-top. Perhaps an uncontrollable fear came over Miura in the end, one that had nothing to do with US justice system. We'll never know.

See all the collected posts on the Miura Kazuyoshi case here.