http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/face/0205/0523exorcist.html
Mainichi Daily News

Evil cultist proves that too
much exorcise can be fatal

By Ryann Connell
Staff Writer

May 23, 2002

[PHOTO] Self-styled exorcist Sachiko Eto went from Avon lady to vengeful "God".

A little over a decade ago, Sachiko Eto was living the typical life of an average, middle-aged Japanese housewife. Now, her life is anywhere but normal as she sits on Death Row awaiting the gallows after being convicted by the Fukushima District Court for the murders of six people. In between, according to Yomiuri Weekly (6/2) lies a lie of sordidness revolving around money, sex, foxes and gods.

Eto was born in 1947 in the Kanagawa Prefecture naval port city of Yokosuka. She married her high school sweetheart at 20 and gave birth to a boy and three girls. Her husband ran a decorating business, while Eto worked as an Avon lady, selling cosmetics door-to-door. In 1984, the couple purchased a huge new home and they lived a life of tranquility for the next seven years.

Eto's life began to sour in 1991, when her husband injured his back and his business started to fail. Instead of concentrating on work, he gambled. Soon, the family was 20 million yen in the red.

But Eto and her husband were still willing to work together. They gave up their material possessions and began living in a religious commune in the Chubu Region to try and rebuild their lives. It worked for the husband - he found himself a lovely young piece among the followers of their religion and ran off to live with her in Kobe. Eto went to Kobe several times to persuade the husband to return to her, but he refused.

Distraught, Eto contemplated suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. She only stopped when she thought of her children and how much they still needed her, the same motivation that led her to return to cosmetic sales. It was while she was out on the beat that things changed dramatically for Eto.

People started claiming that her presence had cured them of their ills.

Apparently untreatable illnesses were miraculously cured. By 1994, Eto had set up her own home, was calling herself an "exorcist" and charging 70,000 yen a pop for those thronging to seek her help.

Weekly Yomiuri says that among the ailing were Mitsuo Sekine, his wife, and her younger sister's family, the Mikis. By November 1994, cured of their ills, Sekine, his wife, Kimiko, and the Mikis -- Mamoru, Kazuko and their daughter, Satoe -- were living in Eto's home. Akemi Senzaki, 27, and Tatsuo Igai, 42, two former coworkers of Eto, were there, too. All the guests referred to the former Avon lady as "God."

That month, November 1994, proved to be an auspicious month for the self-professed demon slayer and she owed her good fortune to 18-year-old Satoe Miki.

Yomiuri Weekly notes that a classmate of Satoe's had been seeing 20-year-old Yutaka Nemoto, a member of the Ground Self-Defense Force, for the past two years. The classmate confided to Satoe that she felt as though she was possessed by a demon. Following Satoe's advice, the girl sought Eto's help in November 1994, taking Nemoto along with her.

Though Nemoto had no interest in his schoolgirl girlfriend's silly stories, he accompanied her to the exorcism. After 47-year-old Eto praised the young soldier for his manners, he started frequenting her home without his girl in tow. It seems Nemoto had a demon he need to exorcise himself.

During his two years together with the girl, he hadn't been able to consummate the relationship and feared he'd never taste the fruits of the womb, so to speak. That was one demon Eto had no worries about exorcising. Soon, she was claiming the lover 27 years her junior was just as much a god as she was, much to the chagrin of Eto's daughter, Hiroko, who was forced to watch her mother openly discuss her sex life with a man three years younger than she was.

Eto's antics would have ended up being little more than weird if things had finished here, according to Yomiuri Weekly. But they didn't. Nemoto's girlfriend continued to seek Eto's aid. The exorcist's advice on Dec. 27, 1994, was for her to end the relationship with Nemoto.

When the girl refused, Eto screamed that the evil spirit of a fox possessed the girl. She picked up a set of the small clubs used to beat Japanese drums and began pounding the girl. For the next three days, Eto, her daughter, Sekine and Nemoto took turns trying to beat the spirit out of the girl. She was rescued, black and blue, by her parents on New Year's Eve.

At the start of 1995, Eto developed an insatiable yearning to monopolize Nemoto.

When Mamoru Miki complained that Nemoto was robbing him of Eto's attention, she responded by having him "exorcised" with a drumstick beating that ultimately proved fatal. Mitsuo Sekine took part in the exorcism of his wife, Kimiko, who needed to be purged of evil spirits Eto only detected after the woman refused to extend her a loan.

Within six months, Mamoru, Kazuko and Satoe Miki, Kimiko Sekine, Tatsuo Igai and Akemi Senzaki had all been beaten to death by the "exorcisms" carried out by Eto, her daughter, Nemoto and Mitsuo Sekine.

Eto ordered their bodies be left to rot in a room of her home. They did so for six months until somebody finally came looking for the missing.

Now, it is the exorcists' turn to rot. Mitsuo Sekine and Hiroko Eto, the exorcist's daughter, were ordered last month to spend 18 years behind bars.

Yutaka Nemoto was given a life sentence. And Eto herself? She will go to a far quicker and less painless death than those she inflicted on the six people who lost their lives because of their faith in her.

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