In 2005 at
Hiratsuka,
Kanagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, was murdered and her mother (born July 17, 1951) was later convicted of
killing her own daughter. Chizuko Okamoto was also suspected as a
serial killer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
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* 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 might have killed at least four others, but was not charged. ''
Asahi Shimbun'' described her mysterious incident as "house of horrors".
Background
Chizuko Okamoto was born in
Aomori Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the east, ...
. She ran away from her first husband in 1975 and began a relationship with the man who would later become her common-law husband. Her first husband died in a
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...
on
Okushiri Island
is an island in Hokkaidō, Japan. It has an area of . The town of Okushiri and the Hiyama Prefectural Natural Park encompass the entire island. It has many pastures, beech tree forests, and a rocky coastline. There are two elementary schools, on ...
in 1993.
Chizuko's six-year-old son, Toshihide, disappeared in 1984. She gave birth to two children in 1985 and 1987, but did not report their births. Her common-law husband died of illness in 1997. She began to insist that her disappeared son was
abducted by agents of the North Korean government.
Murder and arrest
At the time, Chizuko Okamoto lived with her 35-year-old stepson Minehiro Yamauchi and her 19-year-old daughter Rikako. Her daughter died in October 2005, and Yamauchi died in March 2006. Yamauchi's mother found the bodies of her son and Rikako in Okamoto's apartment in
Hiratsuka,
Kanagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...
on May 1, 2006. Upon investigation of the apartment, police discovered the remains of Toshihide and her two other newborns. The police also found a memo suggesting that Okamoto was the murderer, and, on May 3, 2006, she was arrested.
Controversy and trial
The death of Minehiro Yamauchi was ruled a suicide. Autopsies performed on the bodies of the three children were inconclusive, and because the three-year
statute of limitations on the crime of abandoning a corpse had passed, no charges relating to the children were pursued.
During the trial, Chizuko Okamoto insisted on her innocence and claimed that Minehiro had killed Rikako. Despite a lack of admissible physical evidence and witnesses, Okamoto was convicted. On July 23, 2007, the Yokohama District Court sentenced her to 12 years in prison for the murder of her daughter.
Chizuko Okamoto appealed the guilty verdict. Her appellate hearing commenced in the
Tokyo High Court
is a high court in Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The is a special branch of Tokyo High Court.
Japan has eight high courts: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Sendai, Sapporo, and Takamatsu. Each court has jurisdiction over one of ...
on May 8, 2008. The Tokyo High Court upheld her sentence on October 23, 2008.
See also
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Statute of limitations
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Osaka child abandonment case
The Osaka child abandonment case was a case of child abandonment involving two abandoned children in Osaka, Japan. It occurred on June 9, 2010 when Sanae Shimomura, a 23-year-old Japanese single mother in Osaka, sealed the door of her apartment shu ...
References
External links
Flat full of bodies; mom guilty of killing daughter''
Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
'' July 24, 2007
Son missing since '84 may be among bodies found in flat''
Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
'' May 5, 2006
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Japanese Wikipedia entry on the incident case
{{DEFAULTSORT:Okamoto, Rikako
Murder in Japan
Victims of serial killers
2005 murders in Japan