Moonlight Sonata Murder Case

Chronology
‹ Pro Soccer Player Blackmail Case	List of Episodes	Ayumi-chan Kidnapping Case ›

Episode 11 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}})
Information
Title:	Moonlight Sonata Murder Case
Japanese title:	Piano Sonata "Gekkō" Satsujin Jiken (ピアノソナタ「月光」殺人事件)
Original airdate:	April 8, 1996
Season:	1
Manga source:	Volume 7: File 2~7
English version
English title:	The Moonlight Sonata Murder Case
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri
Case solved by:	Kogoro Mouri (via Conan)
Next Conan's Hint:	School festival
Staff
Director:	Kenji Kodama
Organizer:	Kenji Kodama, Kuchiru Kazehara
Storyboard:	Kenji Kodama, Kuchiru Kazehara
Episode director:	Ikuro Sato, Yuji Yamaguchi
Animation director:	Masatomo Sudo, Hirotoshi Takaya
Voice Cast: Minami Takayama as Conan Edogawa Wakana Yamazaki as Ran Mouri Akira Kamiya as Kogoro Mouri Chafurin as Inspector Megure Shozo Iizuka as Tatsuji Kuroiwa Shigezo Sasaoka as Hideo Kawajima Ikuya Sawaki as Masato Shimizu Atsushi Ii as Kazuaki Hirata Ai Orikasa as Nami Asai Kei Hayami as Reiko Kuroiwa Hidetoshi Nakamura as Ken Nishimoto Masuo Amada as Shuichi Sawamura Yukimasa Natori as Manager Yasuhiro Takato as Clerk Yuichi Nagashima as Policeman Yukiko Iwai as Election Car Wataru Takagi as Next Conan's Hint
1 Hour Special

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Kogoro Mouri Ran Mouri Inspector Megure

Case

Situation

Kogoro Mouri received a strange cut-and-paste letter from a client called Asou Keiji asking him investigate something on Tsukikage Island. He then found out that the man requesting for the investigation, Keiji Asou, has been dead for 12 years. He was a world-renowned pianist who suddenly killed his family, set his house on fire, and played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata as his house burnt around him. Despite thinking the letter is a poor prank, Kogoro decides to investigate anyway and finds the island is holding elections for mayor. Two years ago, a passerby heard the Moonlight Sonata playing from the community center and discovered the body of the mayor slumped over the piano. Although he died from a heart attack, the similarity to the death of Keiji Asou caused the islanders to think the piano has cursed.

Murder

290px

Location: Community center piano room on Tsukikage Island Victim: Hideo Kawashima Cause of death: Drowned Suspects: Masato Shimizu, Kazuaki Hirata, Shuichi Murasawa, Reiko Kuroiwa, and Narumi Asai Hideo Kawashima's sodden body found slumped over the cursed community piano as the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata played in the background. Water marks show the body had been dragged to the piano through a back door in the piano room which leads to the sea.

Murder

290px

Location: Community center broadcasting room on Tsukikage Island Victim: Tatsuji Kuroiwa Cause of death: Stabbed to death Suspects: Masato Shimizu, Kazuaki Hirata, Shuichi Murasawa, Reiko Kuroiwa, and Narumi Asai Tatsuji Kuroiwa was found stabbed in the broadcasting room. The body was discovered by Ken Nishimoto soon after the second movement of the Moonlight Sonata began playing over the sound system. At the dead man's feet is sheet music inscribed in blood.

Murder

290px

Location: Community center storage room on Tsukikage Island Victim: Ken Nishimoto Cause of death: Hanged Suspects: Masato Shimizu, Kazuaki Hirata, Shuichi Murasawa, Reiko Kuroiwa, and Narumi Asai Ran found Ken Nishimoto's hanged body in the storage room. At his feet was coded sheet music purporting to be his will. Although it wasn't playing, the third movement of Moonlight Sonata was recorded on the tape cassette nearby.

People

Keiji Asou
	Deceased World-renowned pianist

Narumi Asai
	26 years old Island doctor From Tokyo

Kameyama
100px	Deceased Former mayor

Tatsuji Kuroiwa
	Victim (stabbed) 56 years old Current mayor

Reiko Kuroiwa
	27 years old Tatsuji's only daughter

Kazuaki Hirata
	31 years old Mayor's private secretary

Shuichi Murasawa
	27 years old Reiko's fiance

Hideo Kawashima
	Victim (drowned) 56 years old Wealthiest man in town

Masato Shimizu
	49 years old Mayoral candidate

Ken Nishimoto
	Victim (hanged) 55 years old Unemployed

Policeman
100px	Tsukikage Island police officer

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

• Evidence

First Murder

Victim: Kawashima Hideo

Cause of Death: Drowning

Location: Piano Room

Time of Death: 30 minutes – 1 hour before being found

• The first movement of the Moonlight Sonata was played from a tape recorder.
• There was sea water trail from the door to Kawashima's body and he has dirt and sand at the back of his shirt.
• Kawashima's jacket was found on the beach.
• The doors and windows of the piano room were locked from the inside.
• There was several minutes of silence at the beginning of the tape.
• The Moonlight Sonata sheet music was found but the notes in the fourth bar were “strange”.
• Conan decoded that the “strange” notes actually say: "The hellfire of hatred made you pay."

Second Murder

Victim: Kuroiwa Tatsuji

Cause of Death: Stabbed to death

Location: Broadcasting Room

Time of Death: 5 minutes and 30 seconds before being found

• The second movement of the Moonlight Sonata was played.
• Nishimoto discovered the body.
• The tape has 5 minutes and 30 seconds lead in silence.
• Music notes written with the victim's blood were found.
• Conan decoded the music notes: "You realize it don't you? You're next."

Third Murder

Murder: Nishimoto Ken

Cause of Death: Hanged

Location: Storage Room

Time of Death: 30 minutes before being found

• The third movement of the Moonlight Sonata was set to play.
• Sheet music that looked liked a suicide note was found under his feet. The decoded note said he regretted killing Kawashima and Kuroiwa and that he didn't want people to find out the wrongdoing they did years ago.
• There was no chair or anything to stand on so Nishimoto could hang himself.
• No one would bother writing a suicide note in code.

Other incriminating evidence:

• The dusty piano in the city hall was tuned perfectly.
• After the first murder, there was someone outside the piano room whom Conan and Kogoro failed to catch.
• When the gang returned to the city hall after the second murder, there was someone in the piano room who jumped out the window and Murasawa was found unconscious on the floor.
• After the third murder, Conan returned to the piano room and found a tuning hammer for the piano.
• Under the piano was a secret drawer with drugs in it.
• Upon looking at the pictures of the crime scene where Kuroiwa was murdered, there was a button with its red light on near the victim's neck.
• Conan found that Hirata has powder-like substance under his sleeves and his left hand was bandaged. He also had lots of foreign money with him.
• Asou Keiji left sheet music in his safe to which it read: “To my son, Seiji”. Asou had a son who became ill when he was a child and had to be hospitalized.

• Conclusion

The person who knocked out Murasawa in the piano room was Hirata. The bandage on his left hand was the result of smashing the window when he was trying to escape. He was also the one that Kogoro and Conan chased outside the piano room. The piano room was his meeting place with Kawashima when doing business: dealing drugs. He was using the piano's secret compartment as a hiding place of drugs he got from overseas to which he exchanged for large sums of money. The reason why he was always talking about the cursed piano was because he wanted to keep everyone in town away from it. Murasawa saw the drugs that he had left in there earlier so he hit him. Still, he was unrelated to the murders because he wouldn't have related the piano to the crimes.

In the second murder, they found that he had been dead for only a few minutes but when Conan fell on the code of blood, it didn't smear when it takes 25-30 minutes for human blood to dry. It was just a trick that the killer used to manipulate the time of death of the victims. Upon looking at the pictures, there was a button that was lighted near Kuroiwa's neck. But after the body was moved, the light was turned off. This was actually the reverse button. While the police weren't looking, the killer turned off the light. The killer used the reversed side, the blank side that didn't have the song, which played for over 30 min and then it reversed. That was when the 5 minutes and 30 second of gap before the music played.

In the third murder, the killer didn't have the time to put a chair or desk at Nishimoto's feet because he had to escape in time. The killer was probably male because the murders required a lot of physical strength.

The purpose of drowning Kawashima was to send the forensic examiner back to Tokyo because it was impossible to do an autopsy in the island. The tape in the second murder was a setup so the killer could create an alibi.

Conan deduced that the killer was Dr. Asai Narumi and that she was, in fact, Asou's son, Seiji. Asai was probably the surname of the family that adopted him. After graduation, he came to the island as a female doctor. The pronunciation of his name was not written on his diploma nor the medical license but if they checked his history, they would have found out that he was a man. He stayed all night so that they'd make him last for questioning.

As for Murasawa, he was an admirer of the late Asou and he was the one who kept the donated piano in tune just like that night.

Seiji then committed suicide by dying like his father did that Conan failed to stop, but he played one last music code message in the burning flames: "Thank you, little detective."

• Motive

Seiji's motive dated back when his father, the pianist, and his family was murdered. Kawashima, Nishimoto, Kuroiwa, and Kameyama used Asou's international concerts as a front for their international drug trade. But when Asou stated that he wouldn't cooperate any longer, they got scared that their secret might be exposed. This was all written in the sheet music that he left behind in the safe as his confession to his son. Seiji was hospitalized in Tokyo at the time of the murder.

Seiji went back to the island to avenge his family's death. When he told Kameyama that he was Asou's son, the late mayor was terrified and told him everything. He then had a heart attack. Seiji played the Moonlight Sonata that his father loved so much upon seeing the mayor dead.

Images

• 

See also

• Season 1