Jisatsu Sakuru Off Screen

Posted on Wed, Oct. 13, 2004

9 dead in Japan; suicide possibly arranged online

By James Brooke, New York Times

TOKYO - Nine people were found dead in two rented cars on Tuesday, with the windows sealed from the inside and charcoal burners at their feet, in what Japanese police are calling modern Japan's largest suicide pact.

The police said that in one minivan, which had been rented for the day, they found seven bodies, including teenagers and a 33-year-old woman who had left a note for her children. Parked on a mountain road in a Tokyo suburb, the gray van had been wrapped in blue plastic sheets with the windows taped closed. Inside, the woman's body was in the driver's seat, and there were three bodies on each of the van bench seats. All were believed to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

``Mother is going to die, but I was happy that I could give birth to you,'' said a note found next to the driver, according to Kyodo. An empty package of sleeping pills was found near the van.

The group may have come together through a suicide message board on the Internet, Japanese news media quoted the police as saying. Although Japan has a suicide rate about twice the rate of the United States, the government tolerates ``suicide'' Web sites where people discuss suicide and suicide techniques. Some Web sites even sell kits for ``painless'' suicide.

Using a Web-capable cell phone, one of the seven in the van e-mailed a friend in northern Japan on Monday evening, giving the exact location of the van, a police official for Saitama, the Tokyo suburb, told Agence France-Presse. All the van's occupants were dead by the time the police arrived, just after dawn.

At virtually the same time Tuesday morning, outside a temple in Yokusuka, about 75 miles to the south, the police found a rented car containing the bodies of two women, ages 21 and 27. They apparently had also asphyxiated themselves by burning charcoal in two stoves in the car. The police told Kyodo news that the two lived about 25 miles apart and had also apparently met through the Internet, police told Kyodo News.

``This is not murder. We planned this,'' read a message found in the women's car, according to Agence France-Presse.

The police have asked Internet service providers to report information about chat group participants who post suicide plans on the Web, but the directive is believed to be largely ignored.

Last year, Japan reported a record 34,427 cases of suicide, a slight increase over previous years. From January 2003 to June 2004, 45 people committed suicide in groups after meeting over the Internet, according to the National Police Agency. In one case last month, four young people were found dead after burning charcoal in a car parked only three miles from where the van was found Tuesday.