He Killed a Little Girl and Sent her Mother a Picture as Proof
The Kidnapping and Murder of Kaede Ariyama.
Many young people who are victims of physical or sexual abuse, poverty, or dysfunctional family settings often get caught up with crime. Second chances are sometimes a good way to help some of these people who have been convicted of a crime at a young age and want to turn their life around.
Rehabilitating these young people, supporting them in their search for a better life and mental support is also a good way to ensure these people will not re-offend. However, sometimes, a second chance can be a big mistake.
This is the story of a man who was not only given a second, but a third chance despite being convicted of crimes such as sexually assaulting many children as well as attempted murder of a 5 year old. Despite all these charges, he was continuously released and it took him to murder 7 year old Kaede Ariyama before finally receiving justice.
How did he kidnap and kill Kaede? Why did he target her? What were his past crimes and why was he released back into society to prey on children again?
The Troubled Life of Kaoru
“Society wouldn’t understand me no matter what I said”
-Kaoru Kobayashi
Kaoru Kobayashi was born in 1968 in Osaka. According to Hiroyuki Shinoda, editor in chief of Sou Magazine who had many interviews with Kaoru when he was in prison, Kaoru’s father was abusive towards him. Kaoru was also often bullied at school and told Hiroyuki that his life would have been much different had he been born into a loving family.
Along with his troubled upbringing, bullying at school and tendency to have trouble socializing with other students, his mother also passed away when Kaoru was 10 years old. This loss of his mother created a void and with his poor financial upbringing, he was also robbed of a regular childhood. He started partaking in activities such as smoking, shoplifting and stealing motorbikes.
Kaoru started working from a young age as a paper delivery boy, along with attending high school. According to his history in Nara District Court reports, there were incidents of Kaoru touching female classmates inappropriately such as hugging them from behind, touching their chests, and rolling up their skirts.
After graduating high school, he worked at a newspaper office as well as various Japanese izakayas, which are pub-style restaurants. But in 1989, at age 21, he was arrested and convicted for sexually assaulting two 5 year old girls. He received a 4-year sentence which was suspended with probation.
He then worked as a truck driver and was even in a relationship, however, he couldn’t control his sexual desires for children and once again tried to sexually assault a 5 year old girl at a local kindergarten in 1991. When she started screaming he started strangling her. But she survived and Kaoru was arrested and charged with attempted murder.
His suspended sentence was revoked and he was given a four year sentence plus three years for the attempted murder. However, he was temporarily released in 1995 serving only four years in prison.
Once out of prison, he continued to go from job to job, working at various newspaper outlets, ramen shops, and odd jobs. Reports from the court also told that Kaoru was often dismissed from his jobs because of constant lateness, drinking too much, stealing from the company, and fraud.
Although Kaoru was never married, he often told coworkers he had children, was divorced, and committed murder. People who knew him said he was a compulsive liar and untrustworthy. He also continued to have trouble with the law.
He worked at the Mainichi Shinbun Newspaper office in Osaka but was fired in May 2004 for stealing 230,000 yen (about $2300) and a warrant for his arrest was made on November 17, 2004, the same day Kaede went missing.
In June 2004, Kaoru moved to Shiga Prefecture and worked for the Yomiuri Newspaper Agency but was fired once again. He then moved to Nara Prefecture where he worked for Mainichi Shinbun Newspaper again. The office was apparently not aware of his work history at the Osaka branch.
Along with his instability with work, his crimes were continuing to increase along with his sexual urges. He told police that between June and November 2004, he stole children’s underwear from balconies where they were hanging to dry. He also cornered a 6-year-old girl in a condominium parking lot, stripped and fondled himself while taking pictures with his cellphone.
Targeting Kaede Ariyama
On November 17, 2004, Kaoru got into his car and drove to Osaka to look for a girl he could sexually assault. But after not finding anyone, he drove to the Tomio District of Nara which he was familiar with because of his newspaper route. He was looking for a young girl who might be coming home from school.
According to the reporting from The Japan Times, Kaede left school after 1 pm and was walking home. She had a child’s cell phone and around 1:40 pm called her mother telling her she was going to go home to get her bike then come back to school so she could watch her mother’s volleyball game.
A junior high school girl in the area later told police she saw a man drive away in his car just before 2 pm. The girl said she saw Kaede talking to the man in the car. Kaede’s mother tried calling her at 2:30 when Kaede never showed up. She called the police and reported her missing.
At 8 pm, Kaede’s mother received a text message from Kaede’s phone saying, “I’ve got your daughter.” Attached was a photo of Kaede but there was no ransom demand.
The Crime
Kaoru after getting Kaede to get into his car told Kaede he would take her to the school but first had to run an errand. He told her he had forgotten some luggage and asked if she could help him get it. She accepted and followed him into his apartment.
Kaoru told investigators that originally he was going to only sexually assault her but found that she was quite intelligent and would be able to identify him so he decided he would have to kill her.
Around 3 pm he started touching Kaede and put her in the bathtub where he attempted to fondle her but she started screaming. Fearing he might be found out by the neighbors he decided to drown her in the tub.
As an alibi, he left Kaede in his home while he went out to eat at a restaurant and decided what to do with her body. He went back home, removed some teeth from Kaede’s mouth, sexually assaulted her, took pictures of her with her phone, and sent one to the mother and one to his own phone.
Wanting to get rid of the evidence quickly, he took Kaede’s body, re-dressed her in her original clothes, and dumped her in a ditch on the side of the road near her neighborhood around 10 pm.
After Kaede’s mother had reported Kaede missing, hundreds of police, residents and volunteers combed the area but they couldn’t find her. Finally, just after midnight, a driver came upon her remains by the road and contacted the police.
The police reported that,
“The girl was dressed in the same clothes — a red sweatshirt and dark blue denim skirt — she had worn to school, but her mobile phone, bag, shoes, socks and a denim jacket were not found. They suspect the girl was slain elsewhere and the body was dumped at the site.”
Finding The Killer
Medical examiners found water in Kaede’s lungs and found the cause of death to be drowning. However, the water was clean and had no mud which indicated she was killed in a bathtub rather than a river or pond. They also found hairs belonging to a male. Using GPS, they learned that the text and message sent using Kaede’s phone was sent close to the area of where she was dumped. But with no other leads and no witnesses that could give a description of the man, police were having trouble trying to find the culprit.
Six months passed and the police were still not able to find a suspect but continued their investigation. Flyers were printed, posters asking for the whereabouts of Kaede were seen around the town. Police searched the phone records of the girl and narrowed down the area where the message had come from. They had also gotten a description of the car the culprit might have used as witnessed by the junior high school girl. Slowly the police were closing in on Kaoru.
But Kaoru thinking he had gotten away with his crime, on December 14th, sent another picture of Kaede’s body and this time wrote, “Her sister will be next.” He was also so brazen that he showed the pictures of Kaede’s corpse to some customers at the restaurant he would visit. He told people he found the pictures on the internet. But luckily, Kaoru had sent the pictures from her phone to himself so the police were able to track his phone and find him.
On December 30th, police raided Kaoru’s home where they found Kaede’s school bag and her cellphone. Police also found about 100 videos of child pornography, 80 girl’s underwear and swimsuits, and a doll torso with no limbs in his home during the raid.
They arrested him and he was later charged with kidnapping, murder, and abandoning of a corpse. After finding out more details of his crime he was also charged with intimidation and obscenity.
Arrest & Sentencing
A psychiatric evaluation was done after Kaoru was arrested and charged. The Japan Times reported, “Kobayashi’s psychiatrist diagnosed him as suffering from antisocial personality disorder and pedophilia, but sane enough to be responsible for his actions.” The doctor in charge of the evaluation also concluded that he was likely to be a repeat offender. Prosecutors wanted the death penalty because they felt Kaoru could no be rehabilitated.
His defense hoped for a more lenient sentence claiming that his poor upbringing and abusive childhood was partly what turned him into a pedophile. But despite his defense, Kaoru pleaded guilty and said he wanted to be executed quickly.
During the trial, Kaoru was often seen with little emotion, sometimes yawning, and refused to apologize to the family. Judge Tetsuya Okuda of the Nara District Court also felt Kaoru had shown no remorse over Kaede’s murder.
On September 26, 2006, Kaoru was found guilty and sentenced to death. His defense made an appeal but Kaoru withdrew it the same day. And in Japan although the death penalty is only for cases of multiple murders, Kaoru was the first person to commit only one murder and receive the death penalty.
Kaoru was executed on February 21, 2013, at the age of 44.
Remembering Kaede
Even after the arrest of Kaoru, the town where Kaede lived was in shock and sorrow. The principal of her elementary school Hirohiko Tanaka told reporters,
“After the ruling it is only natural that Kaoru Kobayashi be hanged but this would never ease the family’s sorrow. Even though nearly two years have passed since the killing, parents still accompany their children to and from the school, and teachers and parents lay flowers on Kaede’s desk. For the children and parents, the case will never end.”
Originally, when the crime was first reported in 2004, Kaede’s name was kept anonymous by the media. However, her family decided to release and publish her name and photo in 2006. Her father also published a memoir and in it he wrote,
It has been 16 years since Kaede was murdered. The sad thought that Kaede’s life was not saved still remains even after many years. She would have wanted to ride her new bike sooner and would have wanted to see her mother and sister. The sadness of being robbed of the precious future of Kaede will not heal.
Kaede sent me an email every morning saying ‘I’m coming home’. I never thought that Kaede, who was always close to her little sister, and who always had a cheerful smile, would disappear from our daily life. I don’t want anyone to have such a painful feeling.
Our only wish is to have Kaede, that’s it. I want to laugh and live happily with our four family members. There is no other hope. I know it’s impossible. Still, I want to live with our four family members again. Kaede is there, and all four of us are the family.
After Kaede’s murderer was put to death and justice was served, her family, her town, and the entire country were still trying to heal from the tragic events that unfolded. Adding more protection and care for the kids of the community, in 2005 a new program was introduced by the Justice Ministry dealing with sex offenders. The program included sharing with the National Police Agency information about sex offenders who have been released from prison. There was also a full-scale treatment program for sex offenders in prison in Japan in hopes to help them deal with their illness.
Hopefully with added measures to ensure kids can travel safely from school and have support from teachers, neighbors and the community, it will be harder for predators to take children.
Increasing awareness and creating programs that ensure dangerous offenders or those suffering from mental illness have proper channels to seek help is one of the best ways to keep society safe. Kaede was a 7 year old girl who lost her life too young, but hopefully her story will help save other little girls.
If you liked this article, please check out more stories of true crime in Japan:
Sources (In English)
https://www.jiadep.org/Kobayashi_Kaoru.html
https://murderpedia.org/male.K/k/kobayashi-kaoru.htm
Sources (In Japanese)
https://www.sankei.com/west/news/201117/wst2011170004-n1.html
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/shinodahiroyuki/20161117-00064547/
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2006/09/27/national/pedophile-to-hang-for-killing-nara-girl/