On January 30, 1957, the 46-year-old Sakai was collecting scrap metal on a U.S. Army shooting range in Soumagahara, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Sakai, a mother of six, earned a living selling scrap metal, and had entered the Army area for the purpose of collecting spent rifle cartridges. Specialist Third Class Girard, a 21-year-old enlisted man from Ottawa, Illinois, used a grenade launcher mounted on an M1 rifle to fire an empty casing at Sakai, which killed her.[1]