was a Japanese

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

who murdered eight people.

Murders

Kurita

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

ed two girlfriends in February 1948. On August 8, 1951, he

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...

d and murdered a 24-year-old woman beside her baby. He then had sex with her corpse. On October 11, 1951, he raped and murdered a 29-year-old woman. He threw her three children from a

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...

called Osen Korogashi. One survived. Kurita killed a 63-year-old woman and her 24-year-old niece on January 13, 1952. Afterward, he had sex with the niece's dead body. At the crime scene, the police found his

fingerprint A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfac ...

Arrest, trial, and execution

Kurita was arrested on January 16, 1952. On August 12, 1952, the district court in Chiba sentenced him to death for the last two murders. The district court in Utsunomiya sentenced him to death for six others on December 21, 1953. He

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

ed the sentences, but because of mental instability he retracted his appeals on October 21, 1954. He was considered to be neurotic and a danger to himself, committing self-harm but also screaming that he did not want to die. He was executed on October 14, 1959.

Aftermath

On May 10, 1956, a pro-

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

prosecutor in Supreme Public Prosecutors Office introduced Kurita into a debate about capital punishment in the Diet.

References

1926 births 1959 deaths 20th-century executions by Japan Executed Japanese serial killers Japanese murderers of children Japanese people convicted of murder Japanese rapists Male serial killers Necrophiles People convicted of murder by Japan People executed by Japan by hanging People from Akita Prefecture {{japan-crime-stub

Murders

Arrest, trial, and execution

Aftermath

See also

References