Article published on December 10th, 1985.

HEADLINE: JAPANESE PUZZLE: THE VENDING MACHINE MURDERS

Haruo Otsu was a typical victim.

He went fishing one recent morning and stopped along the way for drinks at a vending machine. Among his purchases were two small bottles of something called Oronamin C, a vitamin-enriched juice that is especially popular in Japan among middle-aged men.

Halfway through the second bottle, Mr. Otsu, 52 years old, started to feel sick. A few hours later, he was taken to a hospital near his house in the central Japanese town of Tondabayashi. The next night, he stopped breathing.

Across Japan, tainted drinks have killed at least 10 people and left about 35 others seriously ill in the last few months.

The poison most commonly used was paraquat, a deadly herbicide easily obtained here and known to Americans as a chemical used by drug enforcement groups to kill marijuana plants. Often, victims were men who, like Mr. Otsu, swallowed vitamin-supplemented beverages. In almost every instance, the lethal drink had been deliberately put into or near vending machines, which are as much a fixture on Japanese streets as lamp posts.

A Spurt of Copycat Crimes

The randomness of the killings and the inability of the police thus far to catch those responsible has spread concern throughout the country. One by-product has been a spurt of copycat crimes. Twice in the last few weeks, for example, someone has left tainted containers of milk in schools in Mie Prefecture in central Japan.

Continue reading the main story

Psychologists have begun to talk of a new breed of thrill-seeking criminal, known in Japanese as yukaihan. ''They cynically enjoy superiority by imagining the victims groaning, and do not feel any remorse,'' said Prof. Susumu Oda, a mental-health specialist at Tsukuba University northeast of Tokyo.

It is not clear how much these people have been influenced by one of Japan's more bizarre crimes of recent years, the attempted extortion of food companies by a band calling itself the ''mystery man with 21 faces.'' For more than a year, starting in the spring of 1984, this group threatened to poison targeted companies' products unless it received sizable cash payments. At one point, the extortionists went so far as to put cyanide-treated candies on supermarket shelves.

But labels warning of poison were conspicuously taped to the candy boxes. No harm was done, except perhaps to the pride of the National Police Agency, which was stumped.

'These Abnormals Are Hiding'

Last August, the ''mystery man'' announced in letters to newspapers that he would stop, but, in the meantime, the new poisoning spree began. Without the benefit of even an extortion note as a clue, investigators seem to be far from making arrests.

That scared some people. ''The problem is that these abnormals are hiding somewhere in this society,'' the newspaper Asahi Shimbun said in an editorial.

This is still stoic Japan, however, and nothing akin to panic has set in.

Soft-drink companies, although not willing to reveal figures, say their sales have not noticeably declined. Nor is a campaign under way to redesign soda bottles, in the way that United States drug companies devised ''tamper proof'' packages after the Tylenol poisonings a few years ago.

In fact, bottlers are inclined to blame the victims for having been careless; they note that a seal must first be broken at the base of the bottle cap. ''If only consumers were more cautious, they would have seen that some tampering had been done,'' said Takeo Mizuuchi, a spokesman for the Japan Soft Drink Bottlers Association.

Warnings Pasted on Machines

In many instances, tainted drinks were placed inside the vending machines' dispenser slots. Victims apparently inserted their coins, found two bottles in the dispenser, assumed they had got lucky and gave no thought to possible danger. As a result, Mr. Mizuuchi's organization has printed 1.3 million stickers to be pasted onto machines, warning customers to be careful.

The police choose not to discuss the cases, but people in the soft-drink industry say they believe a few deaths were suicides, not murders. Paraquat, the poison of usual choice, was used in 1,402 recorded suicide attempts in Japan last year. This is a country with many thousands of small farms, and the herbicide can often be bought over the counter by providing no more information than one's name and address.

A doctors' group and the Health Ministry have proposed that paraquat sales be more closely monitored. Others also recommend tightening controls over vending machines.

Nothing has been decided, according to the Japan Vendor Manufacturers Association, but one idea under discussion is to retool machines so that coins cannot be inserted when bottles are already in the dispensers. The manufacturers are not noticeably eager to make changes, however, because it would cost them many millions of dollars.

Machines by the Millions

From northern Hokkaido to western Kyushu, Japan's narrow streets are dominated by computerized, blinking and occasionally talking vending machines. There are 5.1 million of them, selling - to name a few items - sodas, dried squid, bags of rice, coffee, cigarettes, whisky, magazines, bread, kegs of beer, eggs, shirts, Shinto shrine oracles, milk, panty hose and rice crackers wrapped in seaweed.

The United States has a slight edge in overall numbers, but industry figures show that the Japanese ratio of one machine for every 23 people is unsurpassed. Sales last year totaled $16 billion, or $133 for each Japanese.

It is a testament to the low-crime society that Japan has created for itself that nearly all machines stand on the street free of graffiti and vandalism. They invite other types of problems, however.

Periodically, parents groups demand crackdowns on machines selling magazines deemed to be pornographic. Last month, the National Tax Administration Agency asked liquor retailers to tighten controls on the 162,500 machines dispensing alcoholic beverages.

A liquor-industry group's policy is to have the machines switched off from 11 P.M. to 5 A.M. But the rule is routinely flouted, and even though stiff fines are sometimes imposed, none have been paid.

Still, the liquor and pornography problems strike many Japanese as inconsequential compared with the poison attacks.

There has not been a reported death for more than a month, leading some people to hope that publicity and greater consumer caution have solved the problem. Mr. Mizuuchi of the bottlers group is not so sure.

''The number of cases may decline from now on,'' he said, ''but I don't think this is over.''