It was a chilling act, and one with an unusual motive. The death of the 79-year-old woman was not a mercy killing. The husband bore no ill-feelings toward her, nor did he feel overburdened by caring for her for about 40 years. Instead, he stubbornly felt that he, and he alone, should be the one tending to the needs of his beloved partner, even when he became too weak to do the job.
It was a chilling act, and one with an unusual motive.
The death of the 79-year-old woman was not a mercy killing. The husband bore no ill-feelings toward her, nor did he feel overburdened by caring for her for about 40 years.
Instead, he stubbornly felt that he, and he alone, should be the one tending to the needs of his beloved partner, even when he became too weak to do the job.
Explaining his state of mind just after the incident, Shinji Aoba, 45, facing murder and other charges, told the third hearing that he thought the police officers who came to apprehend him were public security department members because they arrived very quickly in response to the fire.
According to investigative sources, Kimura still remains silent during questioning. The prosecutors office in Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan, judged that he is capable of taking criminal responsibility, based on psychiatric evaluation conducted on the suspect for about three months until Friday.
A man accused of carrying out a deadly arson attack on a Kyoto Animation Co. studio four years ago admitted the charges in the indictment, in the first hearing of his trial at Kyoto District Court on Tuesday.
“I didn’t imagine that so many people would lose their lives, and I now think that I went too far,” Shinji Aoba, 45, said at the outset of the lay judge trial, admitting that he carried out the attack.
The Sapporo District Public Prosecutors Office in the capital of
Hokkaido, northern Japan, obtained approval from Sapporo
Summary Court on Thursday to examine whether the 29-year-old
woman, her father, 59, and her mother, 60, are mentally
competent to bear criminal responsibility, the investigative
sources said.
Lawyers for the parents filed a complaint against the approval
with Sapporo District Court on Friday.
A man who attacked passengers on a crowded Tokyo train on Halloween night in 2021 while dressed as the Joker was sentenced to 23 years in prison on Monday for stabbing one of them and lighting a fire.
Yukari Okutsu, who has lived in the facility since before the attack, told the gathering that she tries to ease the anxiety of her fellow residents by talking to them when they are in trouble. She went on to say, “My 19 friends, please continue watching over us from heaven.” Okutsu gave the first memorial speech by a resident of the facility.
A Ground Self-Defense Force recruit who fatally shot two of his instructors and injured another during a live-fire training exercise in central Japan last month will be subjected to a psychiatric evaluation, prosecutors said Thursday.
The 18-year-old will be detained for approximately four months through Nov. 24 for the examination, the Gifu Summary Court said after accepting the request by prosecutors for his detention.
The accused underwent six months of psychiatric examinations before prosecutors decided in December 2020 that he could be held criminally responsible. A separate evaluation requested by Aoba’s lawyers has also been concluded.
Barrier Free Japan