At least 40 cameramen and reporters were jammed into the narrow corridor outside the Osaka apartment of Kazuo Nagano, 32. Inside, Nagano, the chief suspect in an alleged fraud that had bilked thousands of Japanese investors of $800 million, waited for what seemed to be his inevitable arrest. Suddenly, two men pushed their way through the crowd and announced to two private security guards, "We've been asked to kill him." When the guards refused to let them inside the apartment, the two men first tried to break open the door; when it did not yield, they smashed a small window and climbed through. No one seemed to notice that the men were carrying something wrapped in newspaper.
As the sounds of scuffling emerged, one photographer pointed his camera through the window at a horrific scene: one of the men was holding Nagano in an armlock while the other brandished a bloody bayonet. Moments later the men emerged from the room covered with blood, and announced: "We stabbed him." Nagano lay dead from 13 wounds. Then the two killers, whose motive is still being investigated, calmly awaited the arrival of the police.
The videotape of the gory murder was watched by television viewers across Japan (as well as in the U.S. and other countries), including Nagano's 63- year-old invalid mother. Outraged viewers deluged newspapers and television stations with calls demanding to know why reporters and photographers had not tried to stop the killers or even summon the police. Japan's largest daily, Yomiuri Shimbun, criticized the journalists for putting their professional duties before humanitarian concerns, adding that "the mass media should search their souls." The suspect in another fraud investigation decided he was not taking any chances. The day after Nagano's murder, he surrendered to Tokyo police and was safely put behind bars.