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TOKYO–The killer came shortly after 6 p.m., bludgeoned his victims in their foyer, then left a trail of bloody footprints to the street where he leapt into a black sedan and fled into the night.
In most countries, such a murder might have been just another crazed act of violence – a botched burglary or a family feud.
But the Monday night murders of Takehiko Yamaguchi and his wife Michiko in a Tokyo suburb were different.
The victims were retired bureaucrats. They'd had a hand in organizing Japan's government pension system.
That's probably why they were killed.
In June of last year, the government confirmed it had lost 64 million records from Japan's pension fund, leaving millions without any record of their contributions.
Now, at a time when Japan is suffering some of its bleakest economic news in years – and being told to brace for more trouble ahead – the murders are seen as a kind of bellwether that speaks to the depths of the nation's angst and anger.
"The Japanese don't show panic the way that others do," says Robert Feldman, chief economist for Morgan Stanley in Tokyo. "But that doesn't mean it's not there. And the way it sometimes comes out is in things like sudden and shocking crimes by a few people – a small number."
All week – a week in which Japan slid into recession, reporting back-to-back quarters of negative growth – the nation has been gripped by the gruesome murders.
Prime Minister Taro Aso told the country he was praying for "the souls" of the couple, and for the recovery of the wife of another retired official, stabbed Tuesday night.
Police say the real target was likely the woman's husband, a bureaucrat who also worked on pensions.
For a country that has always fought above its weight – Japan is the second-largest economy in the world, has the second-largest foreign exchange reserves and the second-largest stock exchange – these are turbulent times fraught with fear.
It isn't so obvious in Tokyo, where on a clear night from the famed 52nd floor restaurant of the Park Hyatt, the city glitters like the Asian Gotham it is. "But outside Tokyo the mood is very different," says Credit Suisse chief economist Hiromichi Shirakawa. "There is a prevailing sense of pessimism. There are fears and anxieties about the future."
In fact, except for September, consumer confidence has been in free fall.
A monthly survey by the government's cabinet office of more than 6,000 national households regards any score less than 50 "pessimistic." This month that figure slumped to 29.4, the lowest in the poll's 26-year history.
Similarly, the Tokyo Stock Exchange's benchmark Nikkei 225 index plunged below 8,000 this week. Nearly 20 years ago it had soared to 39,000.
And Japanese car manufacturers, once poised to take over the world with superior "fit and finish" and "just-in-time" delivery systems, are now facing heavy headwinds at home and abroad.
On the docks in Long Beach, Calif., for example, off-loaded Japanese cars are piling up as carmakers look for lots to park them. The market has suddenly stalled.
Toyota had just 42 days of inventory in the U.S. at this time last year. Now it has 78.
Meanwhile, Japanese media reports citing unnamed sources say Toyota predicts it will sell fewer than 1.49 million units in Japan next year – its lowest domestic sales figure in 26 years.
Isuzu, Mazda and Honda, as well as Toyota, all announced they'll terminate some 6,000 contract jobs in the coming months. As a consequence, Japan's unemployment rate of 4 per cent is set to rise.
But one shouldn't fear any accompanying social ills – the kind normally associated with economic downturns in the West, says Jeffrey Kingston, head of Asian studies at Temple University's Tokyo campus.
"There's more social cohesion here than in the West; there's a greater sense of community," he says. "And there are no broad disparities" or large deprived minorities.
Plus, the Japanese have saved. They have massive cash assets they've squirreled away for years – the so-called "tatami cash," "tatami" meaning "mattress."
Economists say these savings constitute the largest pool of potentially investable savings in the world, some $15 trillion (U.S.).
In tough times, that money can always act as a backstop or lifeline.
Analysts also say Japan learned hard lessons from its decade-long recession during the 1990s – sometimes referred to as "the lost decade" – when the government, banks and corporations conspired to resist facing the true extent of their problems.
In 2003, prime minister Junichiro Koizumi forced banks and businesses to come to terms with some woes: some corporate restructuring was done and parts of the financial system were cleaned up.
Feldman says the world should learn from Japan's experience.
"The key thing is ... it's not a question of whether we face a crisis or not. It's a question of whether we respond in a constructive, productivity-enhancing way."
He added: "What I see is a lot of the world doing a lot of the things that Japan did wrong in the 1990s."
For Japan, Feldman predicts a "wok-like" recession. It won't be short and steep, he says, but gradual, with the economy beginning to emerge on the other side sometime in 2010.
