Crimes of Sunato Banda

Banda's potential downfall

The detectives gathered a task force to handle this serial killer case. However, their progress was slower than expected. It was already 2 weeks since Charlotte Jones was murdered. While the detectives learnt about Charlotte's identity, they still could not find anything tangible pointing towards the killer's identity. The team appealed for witnesses in the cases of two victims, and unfortunately, they could not obtain any leads.

Given the timeframe between the murder of the two victims, the team was predicting another murder to occur by now. If a third murder indeed occurred, where did it happen? Who is the next victim? Where could they find the information? The pressure was on. They had to stop this madman from causing more damage.

Detective Tatsuo cast his net wide to look for similar cases. However, there were no reports of women dying with a mutilated midsection in remote areas. Did he change his modus operandi? Perhaps he did not murder yet?

When he could not find anything of value, he combed through missing people cases. He was looking for a needle in the haystack. He was overwhelmed, exhausted and faced a mental block. He needed a heavy dose of luck. This case made "The Kyoto Maniac" case seem like a walk in the park.

Perhaps a sign from the universe asked him to look into the previous victims again. He noticed something very surreal when he typed "Charlotte Jones".

Detective Tatsuo: "You want to check this out! It says that another individual named Charlotte Jones was burnt in a secluded area in Shizuoka Prefecture. This victim was murdered just yesterday."

Detective Kai: "First of all, is that really her name? Two Charlotte Jones died in a matter of two weeks. This is too much of a coincidence."

Detective Tatsuo: "I know. I feel this is our guy."

Detective Kai: "If this is our guy, why did he burn this "Charlotte Jones"? This seems different from his usual modus operandi."

Detective Tatsuo: "Have you heard about "The Raincoat Killer" from South Korea? This serial killer targeted rich old folks and prostitutes. Usually, he would slip into rich people's homes and murder them. However, in one case, he burnt the house of one rich victim. Can you guess why?"

Detective Kai: "He wanted to get rid of his evidence."

Detective Tatsuo: "He cut himself in that particular house. He was afraid he would get caught and hence burnt that house. By doing that, he evaded capture. Maybe in our case, the killer feared getting caught and therefore decided to burn the victim. What I find baffling is how this victim was identified as Charlotte Jones!"

Detective Kai: "You are right! Also, to think of it, Shizuoka is not that far from Tokyo and Saitama. About 2 hours car ride from Tokyo."

After conversing with the Shizuoka Prefectural Police Department, the two detectives learnt that a partially burnt ID card revealed the burnt victim's identity as Charlotte Jones. That was how they concluded her identity. The detectives challenged their assumption of her identity. They urged the team to conduct other tests to find the victim's identity.

The detectives assumed that the burnt victim got hold of Charlotte's ID card and that somehow led to her demise. Now that they got some direction from the mystery of two Charlotte Jones, their next step was to look for missing people in the past few days in Shizuoka or nearby areas. The search yielded some results.

They got a few promising leads from the list of missing cases. They eliminated each case after interviewing the people who reported the missing complaints. This exercise continued for two days when they came across a case that could be a breakthrough.