Takako Konishi (office worker)

Takako Konishi (1973? - 2001) was an office worker from Tokyo, Japan, who was found dead in a snowy field just outside of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota on the 15th of November 2001. Konishi had originally arrived in Minneapolis, Minnesota earlier that month, before travelling to Bismarck, North Dakota, then to Fargo and then finally to Detroit Lakes back across the border, where she died. Her death was ruled a suicide and it was insinuated by the media that she had died while trying to locate the missing money hidden by Steve Buscemi's character in the film " Fargo", under the impression that the film was actually based on a true story.

However, investigations by British journalist Paul Berczeller discovered the entire "Fargo" story had come about as the result of a misunderstanding between Konishi and one of the Bismarck police officers that she had been talking with. The story was then caught on to and inflated by the media, leading to the erroneous urban legend that she had come to America to search for the money in the film. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2003/jun/06/artsfeatures1 "The Guardian" article by Paul Berczeller] ] Instead, it was discovered, Konishi had been very depressed after losing her job at a Tokyo travel agency, and had come to Minnesota due to it being a place she had previously frequented and ostensibly enjoyed with her American businessman lover. Due to her depression and loneliness, Konishi had been wandering the streets of Bismarck when she decided to take her own life through a combination of alcohol and sedative overdoses. The suicide theory was bolstered by the discovery that she had made a forty minute phone call to her American lover the previous night and that she had sent a suicide note to her parents expressing her intent to kill herself (and had disposed of most of her belongings before she left Bismarck). Why she had travelled from Minneapolis to Bismarck before doubling back remains a mystery.

The true story of what happened to her was detailed in the documentary "This Is A True Story".

Reference

External links

* [http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/archive/true_story.html "This Is A True Story": Documentary about the actual story behind Takako Konishi]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374278/ "This Is A True Story" at "IMDb"]
* [http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/fargo.asp "Snopes" article]