Man convicted of Fujita murder is stabbed to death in Halawa

A Japanese citizen convicted of shooting a psychic and her son in 1994 was reportedly stabbed to death by his 38-year-old cellmate at Halawa Correctional Facility early Monday morning.

Raita Fukusaku, 59, was convicted in 1995 of shooting and killing renowned Japanese fortune teller Toako “Kototome” Fujita and her son Goro. Fukusaku was the first Japanese citizen extradited to the United States for murder.

Toako Fuita, 56 at the time of her death, was a famous psychic in Japan whose clients included prime ministers and business leaders.

Shortly after 1:30 a.m. Monday, Honolulu police officers responded to the Halawa Correctional Facility for an unattended death.

Officers were told that around 11:30 p.m., Fukusaku “was found with fatal injuries and a weapon was recovered nearby,” an HPD highlight said.

“The emergency services were activated and a declaration of death was made. It was determined that the victim was attacked and stabbed by his cellmate, a 38-year-old man,” the police statement said.

The State Department of Law Enforcement is leading the investigation after HPD’s Criminal Investigation Division-Homicide Detail, along with the Scientific Investigative Section, assisted in the initial on-scene investigation.

The DLE investigates crimes committed on federal property, including Hawaii’s correctional facilities.

“DLE is investigating the death of an inmate at Halawa Correctional Facility on October 14,” a department spokesperson said in a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “This is an ongoing investigation. DLE is not releasing any further information at this time.”

There were no arrests.

Halawa Correctional Facility staff found Fukusaku bleeding on the floor in his cell and with “trauma to his head and neck,” the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement to the Star-Advertiser.

“Staff immediately called 911 and performed CPR until emergency medical services arrived and took over to no avail. “Emergency medical personnel pronounced the occupant dead,” the statement said. “His cellmate was immediately removed from the cell and placed in a cell.”

The cause of death has yet to be determined by the city’s medical examiner’s office.

“The DCR will not be commenting further at this time due to the ongoing investigation,” the statement said.

A state jury found Fukusaku guilty of murder in the 1995 shooting of the Fujitas.

Honolulu firefighters found Toako Fujita’s body in the closet of her penthouse apartment at 1350 Ala Moana Blvd. on February 23, 1994, with a gunshot wound to the chest after someone set a fire in the apartment. Later that day, firefighters found Goro Fujita’s body with a gunshot wound to the chest in his car in the parking lot of the Park Shore Hotel in Waikiki after the car was set on fire.

Fukusaku claimed that members of the “Yakuza,” the Japanese crime syndicate, were behind the murders and that he was an accomplice and not the shooter.

The Japanese organized crime syndicate killed Fujita and her son Goro so that Goro, the illegitimate son of a prominent Japanese businessman, would not inherit any of the businessman’s money, Fukusaku and his lawyers alleged.

His lawyers admitted that Fukusaku helped dispose of a body in the Fujita murders but was threatened with death. Prosecutors said he killed the Fujitas after running into debt and failing in an attempt to extort $20,000 from them.

The mother and son were both shot once in the heart with a gun that Fukusaku later tried to pawn.