Sweet Warning
Cases unlock in order, like levels. This is case 135 of 200.
Hanabusa Supermarket, Namba district, Osaka, a Wednesday in October 1984, 10:30 am. At 9:50 am, a grandmother was about to give her grandson a box of Starlets, the chocolate from Tsubaki Confections, and saw a typewritten label on the bottom: "Danger: contains poison."
The police pulled two more identical boxes from aisle 4, with the cellophanecellophane A thin, transparent film used to wrap products. glued back down. That same morning, the newsroom of the Kansai Daily received a letter from the "Paper Mask" demanding one hundred million yen from Tsubaki.
Nobody ate any. Yet. The doors were locked with three people inside.
One of them took those boxes home and brought them back.
Candy aisle of a 1980s Japanese supermarket, with police tape around one shelf.
Suspects
Shingo KuriharaNeighborhood customer, 46
Yumiko HosodaSupermarket shift manager, 34
Haruo IshizakiPolice reporter at the Kansai Daily, 58
The real case
The Glico-Morinaga case and the poisoned sweets
Osaka and Kobe, Japan, 1984
Read the real case