In 2005 at

Hiratsuka file:Hiratsuka City Office 20150222.JPG, 260px, Hiratsuka City Hall is a Cities of Japan, city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 257,316 and a population density of 3800 persons per km². The total area of t ...

Kanagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, 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 (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...

who might have killed at least four others, but was not charged. ''

Asahi Shimbun is a Japanese daily newspaper founded in 1879. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. The ''Asahi Shimbun'' is one of the five largest newspapers in Japan along with the ''Yom ...

'' described her mysterious incident as "house of horrors". Japanese female serial killers

Background

Chizuko Okamoto was born in

Aomori Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori (city), Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is border ...

. 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 , ) 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 underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

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 school ...

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

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 A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...

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 o ...

on May 8, 2008. The Tokyo High Court upheld her sentence on October 23, 2008.

References

External links

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 {{DEFAULTSORT:Okamoto, Rikako Murder in Japan Victims of serial killers 2005 murders in Japan Adult filicides Child filicides

Background

Murder and arrest

Controversy and trial

See also

References

External links