Miura Found Dead in L.A.

After reading about his extradition and his boarding a flight to LA a few days ago I was tempted to go to LAX and meet his arriving flight to see if it attracted as much media attention here in LA as it has on Saipan and in Japan.

Miura's arrest on Saipan attracts Japanese media

Given this turn of events I think Saipan will be getting plenty of international press over the next few days at least. Once again not the kind we really want but I guess it is press. How does one hang themselves in police custody? In their cell no less?

This entire case was a huge thing on Saipan over the past 6 or 7 months especially when he was first arrested coming to Saipan for vacation from Japan. The influx of Japanese news media resulted in a huge increase in business revenue from literally hundreds of reporters.

One of the nurses from my cardiac rehab came up to me yesterday while I was riding the stationary bike and said "Hey, I heard Saipan mentioned on the news today, and I knew where it was!" I wonder just how many mainland citizens will see this story here and scratch their heads wondering, where the heck is Saipan!

Now if I could just get the remote away from my roommate who's fallen asleep on the couch watching Saturday college football I could turn to see if this story has hit the major network and cable news channels yet.

You can read more about who Mr. Mirua was including, his profile as seen on his own Wikipedia page and his original arrest reported on Saipan here. The story of his death reported in the Saipan Tribune here and how the Japanese media are reporting it here.

Oh ya I forgot to mention who Mirua's LA based lawyer was. Ya, I think this is going to get some media play! How DOES someone kill themselves in Jail these days?

Lawyer Mark Geragos, representing Kazuyoshi Miura, speaks to reporters in LA

The CNN story has hit the ticker! The "fair and balanced" look over on Fox News here.

UPDATE October 13th.

I've caught the story being played on a couple of the networks local programing and something on one of the major cable news channels in passing. In all the cases I did hear Saipan mentioned and that Geragos has called for an inquiry. How often does someone hang themselves in jail. Are there not 24 hour cameras on each cell with someone watching a monitor or do they not do that. Anyone know?