Edogawa Jane Doe, alternatively known as the Shinozaki Pump Station Dismemberment Case in Japanese media, was a young woman whose dismembered body was found floating in a water tank at the Shinozaki Pump Station in the Higashishinozaki neighborhood of Edogawa, located in the Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. A taxi driver would be murdered in the same location 14 years later, but it is currently unknown if the two cases are connected.
Case
Discovery and investigation
On the afternoon of September 9th, 1988, members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Sewage Bureau that moderated the Shinozaki Pump Station in Edogawa entered the second basement of the building to find what appeared to be a body floating in the sand basin of one of the water tanks. The body was surrounded by various pieces of trash like oil cans, a volleyball, and driftwood with the body. The same trash and body had been seen floating in the same tank the previous evening by an employee who regarded the body as a piece of the trash. Both the employee and officials initially concluded the body to be a mannequin that was thrown away but contacted the authorities to check the scene anyways to ensure their assumption was correct.
Upon arrival, authorities concluded that the body in the tank was instead not a mannequin, but the dismembered corpse of a young woman, much to the horror of the staff. The nude upper body of the decedent was the only piece discovered with a cut from a knife spanning from her navel to about 10 centimeters below her chest. She was estimated to have been dead for at least one to three weeks with her murderer having dropped her body in a sewer that led to the Shinozaki Pump Station. Due to heavy rains and an increase of garbage, the pump station was processing 2 tons of garbage through its systems between August 27th and September 5th, leading investigators to believe the decedent's body had been dumped in a sewer in that period. Immediately, authorities began investigating all of the sewer lines that lead to the Shinozaki Pump Station for the remaining pieces of the woman's body but did not find her lower half.
Police began to scour local missing persons records and sent pictures of the decedent's teeth to local dental clinics though no missing persons or dental records matched the woman's. Meanwhile, her corpse was given an official autopsy and was found to have been cut open with a type of serrated knife. Areas beneath her ribs exhibited puncture wounds while the bones of her second lumbar spine had been cut. She was found to have been cut open and dismembered sometime after her death. She was remarked to have been well-groomed, was local to Japan, and was likely between 17 and 30 years old.
Days later on September 12th, an employee in the waste incineration section of the Eastern Management Office of the Metropolitan Sewage Bureau in Koto, a city 5 miles away from the location of the decedent's discovery, was operating a crane when he noticed a bucket. The employee went to investigate the bucket, only to discover a severed right foot and leg inside. On the morning of the following day, a severed left foot and leg were also discovered in the same area. Both feet were later linked to the woman found in the Shinozaki Pump Station's water tank with it being remarked that it appeared that the legs were severed from below the knee. Further investigations for any remaining pieces of the woman were conducted, but as of November 2021, the upper legs and hips of the decedent have never been found. Any leads as to who may have killed the woman were ruled to be dead ends, though authorities have continued to distribute flyers with a reconstruction made from the decedent's skull and inquire about her murder. This reconstruction has never been uploaded online in a resolution that allows easy reading and recognizability.
2002 Robbery and murder of Yusuke Yamaguchi
14 years after the discovery of the woman at the Shinozaki Pump Station, an unattended taxi with its emergency lights on was discovered in the parking lot of the pump station by a member of the local Komatsugawa Police Department. The officer checked the trunk of the vehicle and discovered the body of 54-year-old Yusuke Yamaguchi, who was the driver of the taxi. An estimated 10 stab wounds were found in his chest and back with his fares stolen. The case was investigated as a murder-robbery, but the perpetrator has never been found. In addition, it has been suggested that the 1988 and 2002 cases may have the same perpetrator due to the nature and location of the cases, but this has not been definitively confirmed.
Nonetheless, the Shinozaki Pump Station has been closed off to the public ever since the 2002 murder, only permitting entry of employees and officials. No further developments have been made in the case of Yamaguchi, and the unidentified woman found in the pump station's water tank has since been cremated and buried in a cemetery in Nerima, a city 15 miles from the pump station. The decedent's dental records are still available, though it is unknown if her DNA was collected before she was cremated. Her possible killer has never been identified, though it has been theorized that she may have fallen into a sewer elsewhere and merely torn apart by the sewer machinery after she drowned. However, authorities have continued to investigate her case as a homicide.
Characteristics
- Type A blood.
- Both hands had their nails painted with pink nail polish.
- A high nose bridge.
- Large eyes.
- Described as having a sly-looking face.
- Piercing holes on both ears.
- Shaved armpits.
Sources
- Tokyo Metropolitan Police (Japanese) (archived case file)
- Rokusaisha (Japanese)
- Wikipedia Japan (Japanese)
