Osaka Police Arrest Yukio Yamaji, Who Killed His Mother at 16, Over the Murders of Two Sisters
The sisters, 27 and 19, were stabbed to death in their apartment in November. They did not know Yamaji, who lived in the same building.
Published
Five years after he killed his mother, Yukio Yamaji was arrested again. On December 19, 2005, Osaka police arrested him on suspicion of murdering two sisters who lived in his apartment building.
Yamaji, 22 and unemployed, was arrested over the deaths of two sisters, aged 27 and 19, who were stabbed to death in their apartment in western Osaka prefecture at around 2 a.m. on November 17. The women did not know him. In 2000, when he was 16, Yamaji killed his mother, and he was provisionally released from a youth correctional center in 2003. According to earlier reports by Japanese media, including Kyodo News, he told police, "I could not forget the feeling I got from killing my mother and I wanted to see the blood of a person."
On December 13, 2006, the Osaka District Court sentenced Yamaji to death. It convicted him of breaking into the apartment, raping and killing the two women, robbing them and setting fire to the apartment to conceal the crime, and found him fully responsible for his actions.
AFP described Yamaji as convicted of killing his mother, but because he was 16, the case was handled in the juvenile system and he was sent to a youth correctional facility.
Sources
- 平成18(わ)26, Osaka District Court, via the Courts in Japan case database
- 'I couldn't forget the feeling', News24 (AFP)