2 prisoners executed, including a woman
Sep. 28, 2012 Jiji Press
The Justice Ministry said Thursday two inmates on death row have been executed, including a woman.
She was the first woman to be put to death in Japan in 15 years and the fourth since 1950.
The executions marked the third round this year and the second during the tenure of Justice Minister Makoto Taki. He did not witness the two most recent hangings.
A total of nine people have been executed since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in September 2009. In the previous round, two prisoners were put to death on Aug. 3.
The latest two are Sachiko Eto, 65, a faith healer who murdered six of her followers, and Yukinori Matsuda, 39, who was found guilty of a double murder and robbery.
A total of 131 inmates remain on death row.
"It has been less than two months since the last executions, but the two latest cases have been in determination for a longer period," Taki said at a news conference. "The ministry will continue to review the capital punishment system."
According to a Supreme Court conviction handing down the death penalty in 2008, Eto beat and kicked her followers in what she claimed was an attempt to rid them of evil spirits.
This led to the death of six people and serious injury for another in Sukagawa, Fukushima Prefecture, from December 1994 to June 1995.
In October 2003, Matsuda stabbed a former butcher he was indebted to as well as his female housemate to death, then robbed them of 80,000 yen. The murders took place in the town of Matsubase, now the city of Uki, in Kumamoto Prefecture.
Matsuda withdrew his appeal in 2009 after being sentenced to death.
Nobuko Hidaka, the last woman to be put to death in Japan, was executed in 1997 for multiple life insurance-related murders.
Japanese schoolgirl who decapitated classmate ‘wanted to dissect a body’: report
A 16-year-old Japanese girl allegedly hacked off her friend's head and cut open her belly in a sickening attack in Nagasaki Prefecture over the weekend. Police said the teen confessed, saying she had the urge to kill someone and cut them open.
BY Philip Caufield / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS / Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 11:19 AMA.
A 16-year-old schoolgirl accused of beheading and dismembering a high school classmate in southern Japan told police she "wanted to dissect a dead body," authorities said.
Police said the unidentified teen lured 15-year-old Aiwa Matsuo to her Sasebo apartment Saturday night and then cracked her in the head with a hammer several times before strangling her with a rope, the Japan Times reported.
The suspect then set upon the victim with a saw, cutting off her head and left hand and slicing open her belly.
Matsuo's mutilated body was found on a bed at the girl's apartment Sunday, along with the alleged murder tools.
The suspect hasn't been identified because she is a minor.
In a confession, the teen admitted to plotting to kill Matsuo because she "wanted to kill someone" and "dissect a body," police said, according to the Times.
The two had gone shopping on Saturday afternoon before returning to the suspect's apartment, where the attack occurred around 8 p.m.
"I told her (the victim) that I wanted to see her and asked her to come. I came home with her so I could kill her," the girl told police.
According to local reports, the suspect lived at the apartment in Sasebo alone since April.
Her mother died last year and her father was remarried, reports said.
She and the victim were friends from junior high, but the suspect had all but dropped out of high school, showing up for class only three times in the first semester.
She was reportedly planning to move overseas, the Times said.
As part of their investigation, police were looking into a series of posts on the Internet forum 2Channel Saturday night written by a poster claiming to have killed someone and cut up their body.
"Oh no, blood keeps pouring out even though I have wiped it away many times," one of the messages said.
"Everyone, (do you want to know) what color the brain is?" another read.
I'll take good care of the brain and the spinal cord, putting them in a solution," the poster wrote.
The gruesome killing sent chills through Nagasaki Prefecture, where such violent crime is relatively rare.
Hundreds of mourners attended a funeral for Matsuo in Sasebo Tuesday.
One told the Times she couldn't "take what happened."
"I just hope I can do something for her dejected parents," the woman said.
