Ryuun Daimai

Early life According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Ryumoto Oyone was born in Asakusa in 1872, the son of a pawnbroker. When he was 7 years old, he was sent to a temple in Ōita Prefecture to be taken care of by the abbot. He trained under his former name, later receiving the name "Ryuun". In 1890, the priest died, and Oyone left the temple to train judo at a dojo in Kumamoto Prefecture, as a uchi-deshi. During the First Sino-Japanese War, which broke out in 1894, he volunteered for the military, but got his nose disfigured due to sustained injuries from a land mine. He later set up a temple in Shimada, Shizuoka Prefecture, but eventually went out and began wandering around the country.

Crimes Oyone's crimes following his imprisonment became increasingly cruel and brutal, invading nunneries to rape and rob the nuns, and in some cases kill them, setting the structures ablaze to hide his crimes. The judiciary recorded three robbery-murders, five rapes, seven robberies and nine thefts, but the actual number of rapes and murders remains unknown. Most of the rape victims were nuns, some of them average worshippers or miko, and others were affected regardless of age. It was reported that some of the victims, who screamed too loudly, had their tongues pulled out by hand and subsequently killed.

The main offences were as follows:

In 1905, in Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture, he killed a 72-year-old nun, stealing 24 yen.

Arrest, trial and execution Oyone was arrested on August 8, 1915, at Hakata Station in Fukuoka. At that time, a police officer received information that the suspect intended to fly to Kyushu under the assumed name of "Utchitsuma", and despite the severe resistance, managed to arrest him.

On May 22, 1916, the Tokyo District Court sentenced Ryuun Oyone to death, with telling the judge that "[he]'ll do it for you, because it's troublesome".

On June 26, 1916, he was executed in the Tokyo Prison (currently located in Shinjuku). According to contemporary accounts from the guards, he ate buns and drank tea, chewed nicotiana tabacum and was allowed to smoke. It was said that he had a dignified attitude, saying: "Because I couldn't smoke for a long time, I went crazy." While waiting for final moments on death row, guards attempted to make a blindfold that was "antidiarrheal Yai". His last purported words were supposedly "If I could be sentenced to death, I would like to die cleanly like this. Let's get it done".