“Blaming Only the Defendant Would Be Too Harsh”: Chiba Father Given Suspended Sentence for Killing Intellectually Disabled Son

From The Yomiuri Shimbun

March 12 2025

CHIBA – On the 12th, the Chiba District Court delivered a verdict in the trial of a 78-year-old man accused of murdering his younger son, who had a severe intellectual disability, by strangling him in July last year in Chosei Village, Chiba Prefecture. The court sentenced him to three years in prison, suspended for five years (the prosecution had sought a five-year prison term).

Presiding Judge Ryuta Asaka pointed out that the defendant had been unable to find a facility that would accept his son for long-term care and was in a “desperate situation where adequate welfare support was unavailable.” While acknowledging that “the loss of a life is a grave matter,” he also noted that “the defendant was in a highly pressured situation, and it would be too harsh to place all the blame on him,” justifying the suspended sentence.

According to the ruling, on July 4 of last year, the defendant strangled his 44-year-old son with a television antenna cord at their home.

The family had been living in Kanagawa Prefecture until late May of the previous year. They had been seeking long-term admission for the son at a prefectural disability support facility for about three and a half years but were repeatedly denied. Wanting to avoid being a burden on those around them, they moved to Chiba. The incident occurred about a month after the move.

Regarding the response of the facility and Kanagawa Prefecture, an investigative team from the prefecture released an interim report in December last year, stating that “support organizations had not coordinated sufficiently.”