Osaka Court Sentences Hiroshi Maeue to Death for Killing Three People He Met on Suicide Websites
Maeue lured a woman, a college student and a 14-year-old boy with offers of joint suicide. The judge said the killings were aimed at his sexual gratification.
Published
Hiroshi Maeue found his victims on internet suicide websites, offering to die alongside them. On March 28, 2007, the Osaka District Court sentenced him to death for murdering three of them.
Maeue, 38, had pleaded guilty. The court found that he lured three people who wanted to die, one of them a minor, killed them one after another and abandoned their bodies in the mountains, and that he made threatening phone calls to the boy's father in the meantime. His victims were a 25-year-old woman, a 21-year-old college student and a 14-year-old junior high school student. The woman, Michiko Nagamoto of Osaka, was the victim whose death led to his arrest in August 2005.
"The crime was cruel, harsh, and outrageous. This was a crime aimed at fulfilling the accused's sexual desire," said presiding Judge Kazuo Mizushima, according to AFP. "It is difficult for him to change these unusual characteristics. We cannot help but give the extreme penalty." The court ruled that Maeue was fully responsible for his actions.
The court described Maeue as having a sexual preference disorder, while AFP reported that a court-ordered examination found he did not suffer any mental disorder.
Sources
- 平成17(わ)4843 殺人，死体遺棄，未成年者誘拐，脅迫事件, Osaka District Court, via the Courts in Japan case database
- Japanese net suicide pact murderer to hang, The Register (Lester Haines, citing AFP)
- 3 die in fake net suicide pacts, The Sydney Morning Herald (AFP)
Related News
- August 5, 2005: Osaka Police Arrest Hiroshi Maeue, Who Lured Victims Through Suicide Websites With Fake Death Pacts
- July 28, 2009: Japan Hangs Hiroshi Maeue, Who Killed Three People He Met Through an Internet Suicide Site