He was sure no one had seen him. One more street to cross, one more glimmering street lamp to negotiate, and he would reach the safety of a shadowy wall. The thief’s cloth sneakers made no sound as he followed the wall down the quiet lane. Reaching into the pocket of his worn coat, he touched something reassuring—the steel of a pistol.
Quickly he leaped over the top of a wall. Not a sound broke the stillness of the frosty night.
At the side of the house glass doors hung snugly in place. He carefully slipped his fingers into the crack between the two doors, inching them forward; the one on the left was unbolted. He eased his body through the opening and stood motionless in the hallway. To his left he heard a faint swishing sound. He stood like a statue, staring at the paper doors, which, even as he watched, began to slide open.
Standing in the opening was the slim figure of a youth no more than 17 years old peering into the narrow hall. “Who is it? Dorobo! Dorobo! Tasukete! (Help! It’s a thief!) The boy darted forward, his arms and legs flailing as he crossed the smooth, polished floor of the hall. Instinctively the intruder began backing away. But the youth was upon him, holding, clutching, and shouting wildly. Fumbling, the man reached into his coat pocket. A sharp explosion filled the house.
Outside and over the wall, lights flashed around the man, their yellow rays piercing the blackness. Neighborhood dogs began barking as he fled down the street.
Suddenly a police officer, attracted by the shooting, appeared and called out, “Stop! Stop, I tell you!”
The burglar ducked around the corner and waited. As the officer dashed around the corner, the frightened man squeezed the trigger of his gun. Then he ran. Behind him all was quiet except for a faint babble of voices.
Under the Radar
Harada, the killer, fled his native island of Kyushu, and after several nightmarish days of travel found himself in Kobe on Japan’s big island of Honshu. He hoped for some measure of relief, some freedom from the ever-present fear that had filled his heart since the night he had shot two people.
But Harada had become one of the most wanted men in the Japanese Empire. It didn’t take the police long to establish his identity and circulate his picture to every police station in the country. He could do nothing but stay out of sight; to sit quietly in an ugly little room in the cheap hotel, glancing out the window now and then.
When cherry-blossom time came, Harada could stand it no longer. One particularly bright day he slipped out of the dingy building into the warm sunshine. He knew well the danger represented by the koban, little structures scattered throughout the city by the hundreds, buildings where two or three neatly uniformed police officers sit and watch for those who need their services.
Blinking a little in the glare, Harada began walking down the street with studied casualness. He hadn’t gone far when he rounded a corner and saw a koban ahead. Abruptly he stopped and began to study the window display beside him. Leaning against the side of the shelter were two uniformed men staring directly at him.
Harada’s mind darted wildly. While their eyes scanned his face the two officers whispered to each other. Cautiously Harada began retracing his steps, being careful to appear unhurried as he took his morning walk. He began to pick up the pace, but turning slightly, he saw the two figures following him. He couldn’t resist the desire to walk faster, and as he did so one of them called out, “You, ahead! Stop! We want to talk to you.”
Harada’s hand closed around the gun in his pocket as he whirled about to face his pursuers. “Yes?” he replied. At the same moment he fired his gun.
One officer fell to his knees. But the other one was on Harada before he had a chance to fire again. Strong arms closed about him like bands of steel. His gun was knocked out of his hand. The street was suddenly filled with a crowd, and almost out of nowhere a police vehicle arrived. Harada was shoved into the police wagon and driven away.
Guilty
Harada now found himself in the Kobe Detention Home, awaiting trial for three murders. From the start he realized that there was no possibility of leniency, for one of his victims was a minor and the other two police officers. He was eventually kept in solitary confinement.
Day after day guards watched him, marking the stocky figure slouched across the narrow bunk, the arrogant face and cold eyes. They shook their heads and turned away: a hardened criminal, this one. One of the guards, however, was inspired to give Harada a paper he had just received, Jicho (Signs of the Times), delivered that morning by an Adventist literature evangelist.
It wasn’t every day that the guard watched over a man who had deliberately shot three people in cold blood. Perhaps, also, it was the prisoner’s face, hate-filled and at the same time the picture of abject hopelessness, that elicited the gift. Whatever the reason, the guard shoved the small magazine through the bars, thinking as he did so that perhaps a Christian tract might influence even a man like this.
Apparently the guard was something of a psychologist, too. Instead of saying, “Here, read this, Harada. It might do you some good!” he simply let it fall through the bars onto the floor of the cell.
Harada stared idly at the magazine lying on the ground, its clean surface contrasting sharply with the grimy floor. Insolently he reached out his foot and pulled it nearer. For long moments his eyes stared at the picture on the back cover. It was a man with as lovely a face as he had ever seen. It stirred something within him. This must be the God of the Christians, Esusama.
The sweet, serious face, so full of compassion and tenderness, seemed to look back at him. For the first time since he could remember, Harada had the feeling that there could be someone who loved him and was interested in his welfare. He quickly picked up the Jicho and read several articles. Then with trembling fingers he searched through the paper again. There it was: an address to which one could write for more information, the South Japan Mission of Seventh-day Adventists, located in Ikuta-ku.
Harada rose from the bunk where he had been sprawled since breakfast. As he peered earnestly out at the guard there was no trace of the lazy arrogance that had been his trademark since he arrived in prison. “Could you get me a postcard, please? I’ve read the paper you dropped, and I want to write for more literature.”
The amazed guard hurried down the hall. In a few minutes he watched with undisguised interest as Harada wrote on the card with a borrowed pen. “I am a prisoner at the Kobe Detention Home and have just come in contact with your paper. I would like to have more literature and, if possible, would like to be visited by someone from your office.”
Pastors Go to Jail
Inside the trim little office building that is the headquarters for the Adventist Church in southern Japan, young workers studied the unusual postcard received in the morning mail. One of the women had already begun sorting through a stack of literature, preparing to send it off.
Timothy Iwahashi spoke up: “I’m going to see this man. If he seems sincere, I’ll ask Pastor Nelson to visit him with me.” He stood up and slipped on his coat.
In the weeks that followed, no one who was at all acquainted with the case could deny that Harada was earnest. He seemed to drink in the precious messages as a man who had wandered in a dry, arid region will drink cool, refreshing water.
Pastors Iwahashi and Nelson frequently visited the drab prison, calling not only on Harada, to whom the visits became the most important thing in his life, but also on Sakaguchi, another murderer who had been baptized into the church sometime previously.
In the middle of winter the pastors decided to call on the warden. “Come in! Come in!” said the expansive man who had been watching Harada’s progress with increasing interest. “What can I do for you?”
Paul Nelson replied, “Harada would like to be baptized into our church, and we’d like your permission to hold a baptismal service for him.”
The warden stared hard at the wall through his thick spectacles. “I don’t think that will be too hard to arrange.” He half rose from his seat. “We appreciate very much what you are doing. First Sakaguchi, and now this hardened criminal, Harada. We watch closely here and have learned to differentiate between the true and the false.
“Now about that service: anytime around the middle of the month will be all right with us.”
“By the way,” he added as an afterthought, “I’d like to attend this—what do you call it?—baptism for Harada.”
One day in April Harada-san was buried in baptism in the warm waters of the large prison bath in the Kobe Detention Home. Paul Nelson preached on the topic of what it means to be a Christian, and on the meaning of baptism. As he explained the beginning of the new life, he turned to the warden and the six prison officials who attended the service with him and stated, “Here is the warden. He can testify that Harada and Sakaguchi have both become new men since they were brought into this prison. They accepted Jesus, and their lives are now completely dedicated to His service.”
The warden insisted on having his picture taken while standing between the two converted murderers.
Final Words
Japanese law states that every man given the death sentence is entitled to three appeals. After prayerful consideration, Harada decided to appeal only once to the circuit court in Osaka.
In Osaka the judges shook their heads sadly. The appeal was made on the basis that Harada was a changed man since his conversion to Christianity. They had heard of his case and his dramatic change and would have helped if they could. But the fact that two police officers and a boy of 17 had been murdered made it impossible for them to intervene.
Calmly and uncomplainingly Harada endured the hardships of prison. Neither the bitter winter nor the stifling summer had any power to change his happiness in the Lord. The Bible that had been given to him became worn and marked as day after day he found comfort in the characters that ran down its pages.
Nor was the converted murderer’s influence confined to the narrow cell. Word traveled up and down the cell blocks, and the prisoners had something to talk about besides themselves and their past exploits.
“This Harada killed three people without batting an eye,” they said. “Now look at him; you can see the change.” Many of the prisoners enrolled in the Voice of Prophecy correspondence course as a result. Later, when we did evangelistic work in the Osaka area, we had the privilege of visiting and studying with some of them.
By this time Paul Nelson had moved to the south and was at home in Fukuoka when the call came that Harada was to be executed the next Friday morning. Nelson did not hesitate. He boarded a crowded train and headed for Osaka. Upon reaching his destination, he hurried toward the prison, then suddenly changed his mind and turned into one of the busy markets that lined the streets. “I’ll take those little cakes, please; the ones with the green and pink icing.” From the stall on the corner he bought an armload of chrysanthemums, their golden color reminding him of that morning when the dawn of eternal day would come for Harada and all the faithful. He bought ice cream packed firmly in a white box and continued on his way, accompanied by the young Japanese pastor from Kobe.
Why am I doing this? Nelson wondered. A man is dying in a few hours, and I’m taking things one would take to a party. But there was nothing ordinary about Harada, and the extraordinary seemed especially appropriate at a time like this.
As the hours wore on Nelson realized that he must leave. They had sung together, studied the Bible and prayed. Time was running out. Uneasily he rose to his feet. Harada stretched out his hand. Taking Nelson’s hand in his own, he said in the language of his country, “Pastor, I won’t say sayonara [goodbye], but Oyasuminasai, mata ashta [Good night; I’ll see you in the morning]. We will meet again!”
The funeral service was held in the Kobe church. The service was about to start when the door opened and a distinguished-looking man stepped inside and hesitated at the back of the room. He was guided to the front, where he sat and listened intently until the simple service ended. Then he introduced himself as the warden in charge of the educational department of the Osaka prison. “I watched Harada closely,” he told Nelson. “Never have I seen anyone more courageous in the face of death. I had to come and find out for myself what was behind it all.”
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After a long career as a missionary to Japan, Bible teacher, and journalist, Leo R. Van Dolson passed away in March 2012. This article was published June 14, 2012.
