The occurred on May 1, 1963, when 16-year-old Yoshie Nakata was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by an unconfirmed individual in Sayama, Saitama, Japan. The incident, in which then-24-year-old Kazuo Ishikawa, a man of disputed guilt in the case, was imprisoned for 31 years, highlighted official discrimination against Japan's burakumin caste. Ishikawa was originally sentenced to death by hanging, but his sentence was commuted after a decade on death row to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. Ishikawa was paroled in 1994, and has been advocating since then to have his convictions overturned. Murder On May 1, 1963, 16-year-old went missing on her way home from school. Later that night, a ransom note was delivered to her house. The note demanded that someone bring ¥200,000 (approximately US$556 at the time) to a place close to her house at 12:00 am on May 2. Her sister, who later committed suicide, took fake money to the designated place, with many policemen surrounding the site. Although a man came to her and exchanged words, he became suspicious and escaped into the night before the police could catch him. On the morning on May 4, the dead body of Nakata was found buried in an alley on a farm. Police determined that she was raped, then murdered. The media criticized the police for failing to catch the possible suspect, the same mistake made during the kidnapping case of Yoshinobu Murakoshi, which had occurred only one month earlier. On May 6, the day before his wedding, a man from the same neighborhood committed suicide. He had the same blood type as the suspect, but he suffered from erectile dysfunction, so the police thought he could not be the rapist. Arrest and trial Near Nakata's home was the . The owner's family and most of the employees of Ishida Pig Farm were burakumin. These employees were regarded among the buraku as dangerous for their history of theft and violence. The police investigated the Ishida Pig Farm employees and arrested 24-year-old on an unrelated charge. Although he denied the charge at first, he confessed to the kidnapping and killing on June 20. Ishikawa and his supporters insisted that the police forced him to make a false confession by isolating and threatening him for almost a month. They also insisted that he could not read or write, but his ex-employer, who was also a burakumin, testified that Ishikawa