The basic facts of the tragic shooting seven months ago are not in dispute. Masaichi Hattori, father of the dead boy, was in the courtroom as lawyers retold how the teenager and a friend were headed to a Halloween party on Oct. 17. The decorations on the Peairses’ door convinced them they were in the right place. When wife Bonnie saw Hattori–dressed up like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”-she was startled and told her husband to get his gun. Peairs allegedly shouted “Freeze!”; then, when he failed to stop, shot Hattori in the chest with a.44 magnum.
The defense contends that the boy, who spoke little English, moved in a “scary” manner. Webb Haymaker, the son of Yoshihiro Hattori’s American hosts and his companion that night, may have bolstered the argument when he testified that Hattori waved his arms at Peairs and that his camera could have looked like a gun in the dark.
Half a world away, Japan-where citizens can’t keep guns at home-followed the proceedings with intense interest. Whatever the outcome, the case has strengthened the Japanese view of America as a place where no one is safe.
