Takako Konishi

Takako Konishi (1973 – November 2001) was a Japanese office worker from Tokyo whose body was found by a bow hunter in a field outside Detroit Lakes, Minnesota on November 15, 2001. Konishi had originally arrived in Minneapolis earlier that month, traveled to Bismarck, North Dakota, then to Fargo, North Dakota and finally to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota where she died.

Her death was ruled a suicide, but some erroneous media stories at the time reported that she, under the mistaken impression that the 1996 film Fargo was based on a true story, had died trying to locate the money hidden by Steve Buscemi's character, Carl Showalter.

Death The Fargo theory surrounding Konishi's death resulted from a misunderstanding between Konishi and one of the Bismarck police officers with whom she had been speaking: Konishi reportedly kept repeating a word that sounded like "Fargo", while pointing at a drawing of a road and a tree.

In reality, Konishi had become depressed after losing her job at a Tokyo travel agency which went bankrupt; not only was she unable to find alternative employment, she also began consuming alcohol. It has been speculated that she came to Minneapolis because it was a place that she had previously visited with her former lover, a married American businessman whom she had met in Tokyo, but who had left her after taking another job in Singapore. however, although two empty bottles were allegedly "found near her body", in her bloodstream. While at least six different drugs were found in her system, including "sedatives, anti-convulsant drugs, tranquilizers and antipsychotics", these substances alone "weren't concentrated enough" Konishi and the circumstances surrounding her death are the basis for Reel Bay: A Cinematic Essay by Jana Larson, published by Coffee House Press in 2021.