On the 27th of May, 1997, an atrocious murder occurred in Kobe's Suma District. The purpose of this study was to analyze eyewitness testimonies in the newspaper and to investigate the relationship between mass media reporting and the formation of criminal images. Eyewitness testimonies, published prior to the arrest of the suspected murderer, were extracted from four daily newspapers (Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri, and Kobe), and analyzed by quantitative and qualitative methods. The analysis revealed that the main criminal images of eyewitness testimonies were "the man who carried a black garbage bag" and drove a "black" or "white" car. It was suggested that the factors in the for mation of criminal images were "conformity with schemas and stereotypes, " "amount of reporting, " and "uncertainty of information." It was also argued that mass media played a part in the "theater crime. "
