In May of 1997 an atrocious murder occurred in Kobe's Suma district. The purpose of this study is to analyze the published comments made by experts concerning this murder, and to investigate the role of the experts in news reporting. Experts' comments published before the arrest of the suspected murderer, were taken from four daily newspapers (Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri, Kobe), and analyzed by a quantitative method within the Framework of 3 roles- "interpretation of the matter", "reduction of apprehension" and "persuation for self-defense". The analysis revealed that experts were expected principally the first roles in this case.
