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The Fukui District Court has sentenced a 72-year-old woman to 18 years in prison for murdering her husband and parents-in-law at their home in Tsuruga City, Fukui Prefecture, in 2019.
The defendant, Masako Kishimoto, was the sole caregiver of the three victims, Sankei Shimbun reported. Prosecutors had sought a 20-year prison term for Kishimoto in the lay judge trial which concluded on Tuesday.
In handing down the sentence, Presiding Judge Yoshinobu Kawamura ruled that the defendant “was driven into a corner due to burdens that exceeded her ability to cope” and that Kishimoto had suffered from caregiver fatigue.
According to the ruling, on Nov 17, 2019, Kishimoto first killed her husband Takio, 70, by strangling him with a small towel. She then used the towel to strangle her 93-year-old father-in-law, Yoshio Kishimoto, and his 95-year-old wife Shinobu as they slept.
After killing her three relatives, Kishimoto tried to take her own life by ingesting several sleeping pills. Kishimoto's daughter, who visited the home at around 7:50 a.m. on the morning of the crime, found the bodies and called 110. Kishimoto was found in the hallway, unconscious from having taken the sleeping pills. The others were in their beds.
© Japan Today
12 Comments
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foreignbrotherhoodarmy
Good. At least she will die in prison, alone and scared. She deserves nothing less.
Meiyouwenti
She’ll be 90 when she’s served out her 18-year prison sentence.
Runtu DaHilz
Getting the impression that familial bonds are weak in Japan.
philly1
Or perhaps after decades of undervalued servitude to a husband and in-laws (based on the hierarchical nature of Japanese society and the role of a wife and daughter-in-law within it), the poor woman thought that death was a better option than life. Sadly for her, the murder-suicide did not go as she planned. She did not get her release.
I feel so much compassion for people in such situations. They do not get the support they need for their own physical and mental health which is fundamental but too often unavailable for caregivers. And not just in Japan. After years of caregiving, as Zichi said, in prison she will receive care--likely more care than she may have known previously. I hope that she finds some serenity and peace in her remaining years.
buchailldana
How tragic. Do the judges have no heart.
How can she be imprisoned
Strangerland
I'm no expert. But my observations of over two decades in Japan say that your impression is entirely incorrect.
ReynardFox
Gonna add ‘caregiver fatigue’ to the list of ‘Defenses That Shouldn’t Be Accepted’, alongside such gems as ‘I was just following orders’, ‘I was drunk at the time’, the ‘Twinkie defense’, and ‘the gay/trans panic defense’.
William Bjornson
Human empathy and sympathy are on full display here, as usual. When one is still naive and has yet to taste the flavor of absolute desperation souring their mouth yet still, in the depths of overwhelming suicidal ideation, have the thought "Who will take care of these people after I have departed", cannot possibly understand this poor woman's situation. One can believe she killed out of rancor. I choose to believe she killed out of mercy. There are not many places for highly senescent people in Japan and they are expensive. She was beyond ready to die but could not abandon her 'duty', could not turn her family over to the vicissitudes of uncaring strangers. And her pain was beyond our understanding or we, too, would be searching out the 'release'...
James
@buchailldana
They could have sentenced her to death by hanging. But they have no choice but to sentence her and 18 years is pretty light for murder.