A 33-year-old woman has been sentenced to life in prison for her part in killing a 48-year-old woman and then throwing her body into the Hinatami River in Nakanojo, Gunma Prefecture, in 2019.
The Maebashi District Court handed down its ruling on Friday against Yuko Yamamoto, from Saitama Prefecture, Kyodo News reported. In handing down its ruling, the presiding judge said that Yamamoto conspired with Osamu Kobune, then 35, a company employee, to kill Itsuki Kiyonori, a resident of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, whom they met on a social networking site for people looking for help to commit suicide.
According to prosecutors, Okamoto and Kobune met Kiyonori at JR Takasaki Station in Gunma Prefecture on July 31, 2019, and drove up into the mountains to Nakanojo where Kobune beat Kiyonori to death with a baseball bat inside the car at a parking lot. They then threw her body off a bridge into the water.
Kiyonori’s body was found floating in the river by a fisherman on Aug 5.
Kobune and Yamamoto, who were arrested in Miyagi Prefecture on Aug 7, 2019, had Kiyonori’s driver’s license and her ATM card in their possession. Street surveillance camera footage showed Kiyonori walking near Takasaki Station with them on the night of July 31.
Kobune was tried and convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
© Japan Today
14 Comments
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Yubaru
If he is the one who actually committed the murder, why is she getting the life sentence and not him?
Once again, Japanese "justice"
sakurasuki
Perhaps Osamu Kobune is using actual lawyer while Yuko Yamamoto just using public prosecutor.
Meiyouwenti
She was sentenced to an indefinite term in prison. There’s no such thing as life imprisonment in Japan.
BertieWooster
If this happened in 2019, why is the sentence being handed out now? Why did it take so long?
Chabbawanga
A what? This is some pretty dystopian stuff right here
M
Crazy people.
commanteer
Wow. Even if I wanted help committing suicide, I can think of kinder ways to go about it.
John
Well done for the court. It’s a fair sentence for horrible killers.
factchecker
they met on a social networking site for people looking for help to commit suicide.
There's something very sick in society when such a site exists.
Ken Holcomb
How does one swing a baseball bat inside a car?
Also, I hope this story caused the social (?) networking site to be shut down. But probably not, sadly.
garypen
*Headline: Woman gets life in prison for killing woman, tossing her body from bridge into river in *2021
*Copy: A 33-year-old woman has been sentenced to life in prison for her part in killing a 48-year-old woman and then throwing her body into the Hinatami River in Nakanojo, Gunma Prefecture, in 2019.*
MODERATOR - You may wanna fix that headline.
Moderator: Thanks for pointing that out.
kurisupisu
How many perpetrators were there?
2 or 3?
The article is rather confusing.
Alex
Actual killer: 27 years in prison.
His female accomplice: Life in prison.
......The accomplice obviously also deserves to be tried and sentenced to prison time, but holy crap, what a failure of a justice system!
Chico3
WOW! Life in prison sentence. That's a new one in Japan. Great for a change.