Kiku Oyama was 24 when she was found mortally wounded in her Market Street home in Denver on the night of November 13, 1894. She had come to the United States the previous November with her boyfriend, a cook named Imi Oyama. After a short conversation with friends that evening she returned home; Imi later found her on the bed with a towel tightly wrapped around her neck. He removed the towel and ran for help, but she died before medical aid arrived.

The room showed signs of a violent struggle: bloodied, disturbed bed sheets, a damp towel on the washstand, ransacked drawers and missing house keys. An examination noted bruising on her forehead and finger marks near her windpipe, consistent with strangulation. Imi Oyama and several other Japanese women were briefly arrested and released for lack of evidence.

Kiku’s killing was the third in a ten-week series of strangulations of women associated with prostitution in Denver, linked in the press and by the police surgeon to a presumed Denver Strangler. No conviction was recorded for her murder.