Haiku killer reveals remote Japanese community's elderly feud

North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy reports from the tiny hamlet of Mitake, where a secret killer taunted locals and police with poetry verses. Mitake does not care for outsiders. Shrouded by dense forest, protected from scrutiny by its remoteness, and often shielded from sight by impenetrable mountain mists, the village of 15 people does not even appear on most maps. And that is the way the elderly villagers like it. That is because this community has dark secrets to keep. But Mitake's secrets are out. This hamlet is now infamous across Japan for the "haiku killings", the brutal slayings of a third of its population.

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For a start, the murders were especially brutal. Each of the victims was in their 70s or 80s, and each had had their skull smashed in, probably as they slept.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-01/haiku-killer-reveals-remote-japanese-community-elderly-feud/4859726