View source for Ki'ichiro Numabuchi

== Background ==
[[File:Young Numabuchi.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Ki'ichiro twenty years ago.]]
Ki'ichiro Numabuchi, who grew up in Nakanojō, Gunma Prefecture<ref name=ep289>Anime episode 289.</ref>, was a serial hold-up murderer who got involved with the [[Black Organization]]. He was originally hired to become one of their assassins, but his mental instability soon exempted him from that career. Instead, he was to become a human guinea pig for the new [[APTX 4869]] poison, under the supervision of [[Shiho Miyano]]. However, while Sherry had been given his file for close medical study, she didn't get to meet him personally. Knowing about his impending fate, he escaped the organization. During his flight in the Tohoku, Kanto, and Kinki regions in three consecutive days, he panickedly murdered three people he suspected of being the organization's pursuers.<ref>Manga volume 35, file 360; anime episode 290.</ref>

In his younger years, before becoming a murderer, he and his four fellow classmates from Osaka driving school caused the death of their stern driving instructor. Twenty years later, his son, who had become a Tojiri police officer to investigate his father's death, caught him, who blabbered out a confession. Since his father's death case was long since time-barred, he decided to murder all those responsible, keeping him for last in order to put the blame on him. However, [[Conan Edogawa|Conan]] and [[Heiji Hattori|Heiji]] cracked the case, and he was taken into custody by the Osaka police.<ref>Manga volume 19, file 185-188; anime episode 118.</ref>

Several months later, he was escorted into Nakanojō forest in Gunma after having claimed that the body of a fourth victim was buried there. Actually, he intended to pay a last visit to his special childhood friends, the fireflies, living in the forest before his execution. There he met [[Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya|Mitsuhiko]], who was attempting to collect some fireflies in order to rejoice his friends [[Ai Haibara|Haibara]] and [[Ayumi Yoshida|Ayumi]]. Instead of doing him any harm, however, he carried Mitsuhiko back to the search parties and had himself arrested without putting up any resistance.<ref>Manga volume 35, file 358-360; anime episode 289-290.</ref>