Doctors accused of killing ALS patient on commission are re-arrested on suspicion of murder

By Barrier Free Japan with extracts from NHK & Kyodo

May 12 2021

KYOTO – Two doctors who were arrested and charged with killing Yuri Hayashi, a woman living in Kyoto who had contracted ALS, by administering drugs at her request have been re-arrested for the murder of the father of one of the doctors, who died 10 years ago, according to interviews with investigators.

Yoshikazu Okubo, 43, and Naoki Yamamoto, 43, are suspected of killing Yamamoto’s 77-year-old father Yasushi in March 2011 in Tokyo, according to the Kyoto prefectural police.

Yasushi Yamamoto was hospitalized at the time for a mental disorder, but the suspects had him discharged on March 5, 2011, for transfer to a different hospital, according to investigative sources. He died the same day, the sources said.

The police discovered emails between the suspects suggesting they attempted to kill Yasushi Yamamoto, the sources said.

According to the investigators, the police found that the two doctors and the mother had exchanged e-mails hinting at the murder before and after the death of Dr. Yamamoto’s father 10 years ago in 2011 at the age of 77, and that the doctors took the father from the hospital to an apartment in Tokyo, where he died later that day. They also learned that the doctors took the father from the hospital to an apartment in Tokyo, where he is believed to have died later that day.

Okubo and Yamamoto were arrested last July on suspicion of murder-for-hire for administering drugs to a woman, Yuri Hayashi, in Kyoto City. Hayashi had ALS, an intractable disease that causes the muscles in the body to gradually stop moving. On August 13 2020 they were indicted for the murder of Yuri Hayashi.

The two doctors were not Yuri Hayashi’s attending physicians and had never met her before their visit to her home, informed sources said. They started to exchange messages with Hayashi on social media at least a year before the alleged murder.

The police also arrested Yamamoto’s mother Junko, 76, for her suspected involvement in Yasushi Yamamoto’s murder.