A House Without Light: The Amagasaki Serial Murders

Drum of Silence

In the cool autumn air of October 2011, a worker at a rental storage facility in Amagasaki, a quiet city in Japan’s Hyōgo Prefecture, opened a sealed blue drum. At first glance, it looked ordinary. But the smell told a different story. Inside the barrel, set in hardened cement, was the decaying body of a woman.

What started as a routine in…