An 85-year-old man who was arrested for killing his bedridden 78-year-old wife at their home in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture, in February, has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.
The Utsunomiya District Court handed down its verdict against Tokuji Imai, Fuji TV reported on Friday. Imai admitted to strangling his wife Akie to death with a towel at around 10 a.m. on Feb 7. He told police he quickly wanted to put his suffering wife out of her misery, the court heard.
A home care worker visited the Imai residence at 8:30 a.m. on Feb 8 and found Akie dead in her bed. Imai wasn’t home at the time and was found walking in a nearby parking lot by police. He had left a note at home in which he said he had killed his wife.
Due to an illness, Akie was left paralyzed on one side of her body, had a speech impediment, and was bedridden.
© Japan Today
11 Comments
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Trapped
Edit: absolutely nothing.
Trapped
Thats a bit rich, Ebisen. There is close to nothing that I could have done. Maybe you know more about oldman than I do.
ebisen
oldman_13
Yes, and we, as a society, you included are responsible for it, by failing to offer the proper support to this couple when they needed it more, after a life of working and paying taxes.. So yeah, think a bit about this.
Cricky
Bintaro, I have to disagree strangling someone does take effort, where as micking plaster of Paris into meat balls will do the same thing with no physical exertion.
Bintaro
What I'd like to know is if the wife expressed any will to die. We'll never know now.
As Disillusioned said, it poses the problem of lack of elderly care.
Well, without resistance, it takes only a few seconds before losing consciousness, so it beats stabbing or beating by a long shot.
Cricky
Not a suspended sentence? that's right out of the box, he obviously was just a guy with no family connections or company affiliated. You can actually kill someone if you are a company boss and get a suspended sentence. Bizarre.
Disillusioned
Of course one cannot condone his actions, but it does show clearly his desperation and many more like him who are stuck as full time carers for their ailing spouse, parent or parent-in-law. This scenario of carers killing their loved one is very common in Japan but, as usual, the government is doing absolutely nothing about the aged care crisis in Japan. This disaster is only going to get worse as the population ages. Hospitals are already struggling to cope with the large amount of elderly patients. The private care companies are struggling to stay in business because many old people have no money and the companies receive no subsidies from their stingy government.
Tokyo-Engr
Oldman - 2 1/2 years in prison for an 85 year old is probably life. I agree with you about the inhumanity of strangling. On the other hand I am wondering how lucid the 85 year old was.
Tough situation
oldman_13
I have zero sympathies, this was murder.
Strangling someone to death is hardly a quick and 'humane' method of ending a life.
Two and a half years is a mockery of the system.