Miura case came to define sensationalism

In January 1984, more than two years after his wife was gunned down in a Los Angeles parking lot, a major weekly newsmagazine began a series of articles titled "Bullet of suspicion," suggesting Kazuyoshi Miura arranged his wife's murder for the insurance money.

Kazuyoshi Miura speaks about his past struggles with the mass media during a recent interview with The Japan Times. HIROSHI MATSUBARA PHOTO

The series marked the beginning of round-the-clock surveillance by reporters. Over the next 20 months until his arrest, the president of a Tokyo-based furniture design and import company was the subject of TV gossip programs, magazines and newspapers. Miura figured he was the subject of about 25,000 stories.

"During the media onslaught, I was featured on about 15 different TV programs a day," Miura, 55, said in a recent interview with The Japan Times. "One of them even detailed my dinner menu, which they guessed from items I shopped for earlier in the day.

"It was unprecedented. An ordinary citizen's privacy was mercilessly exposed to the public."

Miura was eventually indicted on a series of charges, including arranging the murder of his 28-year-old wife, Kazumi. Comatose following the November 1981 shooting, she was flown back to Japan several months later. She died the next year.

Although convicted and sentenced over an earlier attempt to kill Kazumi in a Los Angeles hotel room, in which a female acquaintance of his attacked her with a hammer in August 1981, Miura last month was acquitted on the murder charge.

The March 5 decision by the Supreme Court ended a legal battle that lasted 17 years. Miura spent 15 of those years behind bars.

Soon after his wife was shot, Miura, who was wounded in the leg during the attack, was portrayed as a tragic figure, a victim of indiscriminate street crime.

The "Bullet of suspicion" articles by the weekly Shukan Bunshun, however, marked a turning point in the media coverage. Miura thereafter was widely treated as the prime suspect.

Media reports in the early 1980s began to suggest Miura was behind the shooting, based on circumstances surrounding the incident, including that he had purchased life insurance policies on Kazumi and named himself as the beneficiary of large payouts.

When Kazumi died, Miura was paid 160 million yen in insurance benefits.

The media also seized on the fact that he remarried not long after Kazumi's death.

Coverage focused on Miura's character and private life, typically portraying him as extravagant and a playboy. Reports alleged that he had affairs with various women, others exposed his teenage criminal record and some speculated that he is the illegitimate offspring of a famous actress.

The sensationalist media coverage not only portrayed Miura in a negative light but came before criminal charges were leveled against him in Japan.

"I once asked a magazine reporter why they never reported anything positive about me," Miura recalled. "He said he was banned from writing anything good about me."

In September 1985, Miura was arrested in Japan in connection with the assault on his wife at the L.A. hotel, which took place three months before she was gunned down, also allegedly in a bid to obtain an insurance payout. A former actress and acquaintance of Miura confessed that she attacked Kazumi on his instructions.

More than three years later, Miura was charged over the shooting, again for insurance. Japanese police only had circumstantial evidence. L.A. police never found the firearm.

Miura consistently denied involvement in either attack.

In March 1994, the Tokyo District Court sentenced him to life in prison over his wife's slaying. Unable to identify the person who actually pulled the trigger, the court ruled that the testimony of the actress, who had already been convicted for the attack on his wife, proved Miura intended to kill her for insurance.

"I was shocked that the court would hand down a guilty verdict based on mere guesswork, which was no better than the media reports," Miura said.

In July 1998, the Tokyo High Court overturned the sentence and acquitted Miura of murder, saying there is no clear evidence that he masterminded the shooting.

Two months after being released from the Tokyo Detention House, however, the Supreme Court convicted Miura over the earlier attack and sentenced him to six years in prison.

By the time he served out his term at Miyagi Prison in early 2001, Miura had spent 15 years behind bars.

On March 5, he was finally cleared of the murder charge when the Supreme Court turned down an appeal by prosecutors against his acquittal.

"I felt no sense of surprise. The prosecutors' case was very shaky. They had appealed (to the top court) only to save face," Miura said.

Miura's legal battles have not all been with the authorities, however.

In 1984, he filed the first of his damages suits against magazines, newspapers and TV stations, alleging they defamed him and invaded his privacy. He continued the suits from the Tokyo Detention House and Miyagi Prison.

To date, Miura has filed some 530 damage suits against the media. About 200 cases have been concluded, and, according to Miura, he has won about 80 percent of them, and around 100 million yen in damages.

He said his victories must have taught the media a lesson.

However, a former chief editor of a major weekly newsmagazine that also extensively covered Miura's case said sensationalist media coverage can explode any time a unique or showy person like Miura is connected to a mysterious crime.

"Public curiosity, even jealousy, probably brought about the sensational media coverage of Miura," the former editor said. "The media are commercial in nature and must satisfy such public sentiment."

"I don't believe the 15 years I spent in jail were a complete waste of time, as I learned to be more logical and patient," said Miura, who now runs a monthly magazine that showcases night clubs and other entertainment businesses in the Shonan area of Kanagawa Prefecture.

He said he persistently pleaded with Miyagi Prison officials to improve the living conditions of inmates, and takes credit for getting a heater installed in every cell. He said his fellow inmates cheered for him when he walked out of the prison in January 2001.

"Probably, my aggressive, die-hard nature got on the nerves of many people," Miura said.