Unsolved cases

Paraquat murders

The paraquat murders were a series of murders in Japan in 1985. The murders were from poisonings in beverages that were placed in or near a vending machine.

All the beverages were poisoned with the herbicide Paraquat except for one which was poisoned with Diquat.

The first victim was 52-year-old Haruo Otis. On April 20, 1985, Haruo stopped by a vending machine while on his way to go fishing and purchased two bottles of Oronamin C. Halfway through the second drink, Haruo started feeling sick and was taken to the hospital, where he died the next day.

Following his death, thirty-five more poising happened. As a result, 11 deaths happened between April 30th and November 17th.

The poisonings occurred in western Japan with Oronamin C as the primary drink target. Around that time, Oronamin C drink company had a buy one, get one free promotion. Unfortunately, that gave the killer the perfect opportunity to lace the drinks with Paraquat and place those laced drinks in or on top of the vending machine.

The murders stopped after vending machine operators and drink companies posted warnings on vending machines.

The killer was never caught and it sparked a copycat when someone tried lacing a drink with lime sulfur in Tokyo and some people attempted to poison themselves to copy the murders.

The police responded to warn the public to check the vending machines before purchasing and check bottle caps before opening the drink. It is believed that a single person committed the murders.

During the poisonings, the Japanese Soft Drink Bottlers Association spokesman Takeo Mizuuchi blamed the victims. He expressed how customers should notice broken seals stating that "if only consumers were more cautious, they would have seen that some tampering had been done."

To this day, the killer hasn't been caught, making the case..

Unsolved