Shinya Matsuoka

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Tokushima Prefectural (POLICE)

Missing From:

Sadamitsu-cho, Tokushima

Summary:

On the morning of March 7, 1989, in rural Tokushima Prefecture, 4-year-old Shinya Matsuoka and his family had been staying with relatives for the funeral of Shinya's grandmother. After a morning walk, Shinya's father climbed the steps to his relatives' house with the boy seemingly close behind. When he turned around, however, Shinya was nowhere to be seen. Shinya's actual whereabouts remain a mystery.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

When Shinya's maternal grandmother unexpectedly passed away on March 5, 1989, the whole family went to Tokushima to attend her funeral which took place the next day. Afterward, the family drove one hour away to a relative of the mother and stayed there for the night. On the morning of March 7 at around 8 AM, the father, Shinya, and the youngest sibling, 2 years old at the time, went for a walk. When Shinya didn't want to go home after about 10 minutes as his dad suggested, they decided to drop off Shinya's brother and walk another round in the neighborhood. Leading up to the home they were staying at, there is a flight of stairs, about 10 meters long. Shinya's dad, carrying the toddler in his arms, walks ahead of Shinya, who slowly but certainly made his way up. The time it took only 20 seconds for Masanobu to hand over his second son to his wife and came out to the porch. Masanobu looked around because Shinya went nearby, but when he couldn't find Shinya, the whole family went out and went around, but he couldn't find a child. Eventually, he reported missing the police at 10 am.

Additional Details:

With the mobilization of the police, a total of 100 people participated in the search that day, but nothing was found. The next day, the police sent another 200 people. Several weeks later, Shinya's mother received a strange phone call at her relatives' house in Tokushima. The caller claimed to be the mother of a child at Shinya's sister's kindergarten in Ibaraki and asked when the family would be returning home. But her Tokushima accent gave her away, and when Shinya's parents contacted the kindergarten, they were told no such parent existed. Shinya's disappearance gathered some scrutiny from the public and his family had made over 50 TV appearances and even made their house telephone number public to get as much data as someone may know as possible. Over the years, several people across Japan claimed to have seen Shinya. However, none of these supposed sightings led to answers, and Shinya's actual whereabouts remain a mystery. The turning point of things happened in 2018, and the first file is called "Urgent! The program "Opening the Search" found a man with amnesia who was about the same age as Shinya, and once again caused discussion about the Shenyin incident. After the incident was reported, many people remembered the case of Shinya Matsuoka, and asked to compare DNA to find out if it was the child of Shinya 29 years ago. But unfortunately, in the end this person was also confirmed to be not Shinya Matsuoka. Shinya's mother, Keiko Matsuoka, died in October 2020 without reunion with his son.

Case Last Updated:

Jul 20, 2026