Mabuchi
Motor murderer drops appeal of death
sentence
Tuesday,
November 6, 2007 at 06:55 EST
TOKYO
— A man convicted in the killings of four people, including
the wife and daughter of the chairman of Mabuchi Motor Co.,
and who was appealing the death sentence he received in
March has dropped the appeal and thus became a death row
inmate, his lawyer said Monday.
According to the lawyer, 64-year-old Tetsuo Odajima wrote a
letter to the lawyer last Thursday in which he said, "I
have no means to apologize for the victims. I can only pay
for my crimes with my own life. I deeply reflect on
everything in my life." (Kyodo News)
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Codefendant
also sentenced to hang for 2002 Mabuchi
robbery-murders
Friday,
March 23, 2007
CHIBA
(Kyodo) The Chiba District Court sentenced a second man to
death Thursday for the murders of the wife and daughter of
the chairman of Mabuchi Motor Co. and two others in 2002,
following the same verdict handed to his codefendant in
December.
Presiding Judge Wataru Nemoto found Tetsuo Odajima, 63,
guilty of all counts of murder, robbery, arson and
trespassing involving the three separate robbery-murder
cases.
On Dec. 19, Odajima's accomplice, Katsumi Morita, 56, was
also sentenced to hang by the same court. He has appealed
the sentence to the Tokyo High Court.
While pleading guilty, Odajima had sought leniency.
Prosecutors had demanded the gallows.
Odajima and Morita conspired to break into the home of then
Mabuchi Motor President Takaichi Mabuchi in Matsudo, Chiba
Prefecture, on Aug. 5, 2002, and strangled Mabuchi's wife,
Etsuko, 66, and daughter, Yuka, 40, before stealing
hundreds of thousands of yen in cash and jewelry worth
about 9.7 million yen and setting fire to the house, the
court said.
Odajima also conspired with Morita in the killing of
dentist Fumio Aoyagi, 71, in Tokyo on Sept. 24, 2002, and
Kimie Oshima, 65, wife of a discount-ticket shop owner in
Chiba Prefecture on Nov. 21 the same year for money and
jewelry, according to the court.