For the worst of the worst criminals, Japan
executes their criminals at least two years from the date they were sentenced
to death, it is kind of a swift and sure execution. Although the death penalty
is used sparingly as Japan has a low crime rate, 80% of the Japanese people
support it in polls.
Hiroshi Maeue (前上 博 Maeue Hiroshi, August 8, 1968 –
July 28, 2009), aka "Suicide Website Murderer", was a Japanese serial
killer, who lured his victims via the internet and killed three people in 2005.
Maeue suffered from a paraphilic psychosexual disorder which translated into
being unable to achieve sexual release absent of performing an act of
strangulation.
Background information
Birth name: Hiroshi Maeue
Also known as: Suicide Website Murderer
Born: August 8, 1968 Osaka, Japan
Died: July 28, 2009 (aged 40)
Cause of death: hanging
Killings
Number of victims: 3
Span of killings: February 19, 2005–June 10,
2005
Country: Japan
State(s): Osaka, Osaka Prefecture
Date apprehended: August 8, 2005
Crimes
Maeue entered the Kanazawa Institute of Technology, where he assaulted
and strangled his male friend. He dropped out in 1988. Later, he was arrested
for assault after beating and attempting to asphyxiate a male associate in
1995. After settling out of court, he was released but fired. In 2001, he was
arrested once more for the attempted asphyxiation of two women, and sentenced
to one year in prison, 3 years suspended sentence. Released early for good
behavior, he was rearrested for attempting to asphyxiate a junior high school
boy, for which he was sentenced to 1 year and 10 months imprisonment.
Suicide website murders
Maeue murdered three people after his release in 2005; he was convicted
of killing a 14-year-old boy, a 25-year-old woman, and a 21-year-old man, all
of whom were members of an online suicide club. He lured his victims by
suggesting they meet and end their lives together by committing suicide via a
charcoal burner in a sealed car. After a brief conversation, however, he would
strangle them with his bare hands. This brought him sexual pleasure, and he
later claimed he developed his desire to kill this way after reading of similar
events in a mystery novel as a child. All three of his victims were killed
within a span of four months.
Trial and death
In his trial, prosecutors called Maeue a "lust murderer." On
March 28, 2007, the Osaka District Court sentenced him to death. Although his
defence team launched an appeal, he accepted the judgment of the court and
expressed a willingness to pay for his crimes with his life, retracting his
protest on July 5, 2007. On July 28, 2009, Hiroshi Maeue was hanged in Osaka,
along with 25-year-old condemned criminal Yukio Yamaji.
Man gets death for murdering suicidal trio
OSAKA
(Kyodo) The Osaka District Court sentenced a man to death Wednesday for killing
three people he got to know through a Web site for would-be suicides in 2005.
In
handing down the sentence on Hiroshi Maeue, 38, presiding Judge Kazuo Mizushima
pointed out the cruelty of the serial killings and the unlikelihood that he
could be rehabilitated.
Maeue's
counsel appealed the ruling.
Prosecutors
had demanded the death penalty, insisting he could pose the threat of a repeat
offender because he cannot control his sexual urges triggered by seeing a person
being strangled and suffering.
The
court said Maeue persuaded a 14-year-old junior high school student to join him
in a suicide pact using charcoal stoves to produce deadly carbon monoxide, and
then suffocated the victim near a mountain in Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, in May
2005.
He
also killed a 25-year-old woman and a 21-year-old male university student in
February and June the same year in a similar way and dumped their corpses.
"It's
brutal, heartless, devilish, and his sexual propensity is deep-rooted and
difficult to ameliorate," the judge said.
In
December, the court decided to adopt as evidence a mental diagnosis stating the
defendant's mental competence was undiminished at the time of the murders.
A
mental-health expert who made the diagnosis also testified at the court that
Maeue was mentally competent.
Maeue
pleaded guilty to the three murders and when the judge asked him whether he
would commit such crimes again if released, he said, "I have
worries."
The
prosecutors accused Maeue of committing "lust murder." His defense
counsel sought to avoid the death penalty.
Last appeal fails
Kyodo News
The
Supreme Court on Tuesday finalized the death penalty for a taxi driver who
burned five people to death during a May 2001 robbery at a branch of consumer
lender Takefuji Corp. in Aomori Prefecture.
The
finalized ruling makes defendant Mitsuhiro Kobayashi, 48, the 102nd death-row
inmate in Japan.
Kobayashi
was convicted of demanding money and scattering gasoline in the Takefuji branch
in Hirosaki at around 10:50 a.m. on May 8, 2001. He set fire to the premises
after a branch manager refused to give him the money, killing five employees
and injuring the manager and three others.
At
the trial, Kobayashi denied he intended to kill, claiming, "I didn't mean
to kill them and thought the five had run away before I committed arson."
The
Aomori District Court sentenced him to death in February 2003, determining his
"willful negligence" resulted in the death of the employees on the
grounds that he continued to demand cash from various people even after the
employees ran into another room and he was left alone with the branch manager.
Kobayashi
appealed, but the Sendai High Court upheld the decision in February 2004.
"We
believe that the (top) court made a proper and impartial legal judgment,"
a Takefuji representative said.
The Japan Times: Thursday, March 29,
2007
(C) All rights reserved
THREE
VICTIMS FEARED
Alleged killer linked to suicide
site
OSAKA (Kyodo) A 36-year-old man
arrested late Friday on suspicion of killing a woman he met through a suicide
Web site has confessed to killing two other victims who also believed he shared
their desire to commit suicide, according to police sources.
|
Hiroshi Maeue, with a jacket over his head, is escorted
Saturday morning out of a police station in Kawachi Nagano, Osaka Prefecture,
on his way to be questioned by prosecutors.
|
Hiroshi Maeue, 36, an employee at a
temporary staff agency, was arrested on suspicion of suffocating Michiko
Nagamoto, 25, in February.
He has also reportedly admitted to
killing a male junior high school student from Hyogo Prefecture in May and a
male college student from Higashi Osaka in June, and dumping their bodies in
mountains in southern parts of Osaka Prefecture.
Late Saturday, police found what
appeared to be the partial remains of the junior high school student on a
mountain slope where Maeue said he buried the body.
The Osaka Prefectural Police suspect
Maeue had proposed to Nagamoto that they commit suicide together, even though
he apparently had no intention of killing himself, the sources said.
Maeue is suspected of killing her
Feb. 19 inside a rented car after sending her an e-mail asking to meet. He
allegedly abandoned her body in a mountain forest.
The police sources said he admitted
to killing her, and told investigators he feels "sexually excited" to
see a person being suffocated and suffering in agony.
Maeue is from Sakai and Nagamoto was
from Toyonaka, both in Osaka Prefecture. They apparently met for the first time
at the time of Nagamoto's death, though they had exchanged e-mail about 20
times since late last year.
Nagamoto's body was found Feb. 23
and was later identified through fingerprints. The body was buried along a
river in a mountainous area in Kawachinagano, Osaka Prefecture.
Police traced Maeue as a suspect by
tracking down records of e-mails as well as the car rental contract, according
to the sources.
Maeue reportedly told police he also
suffocated a male junior high school student in May and a male college student
in June, and abandoned their bodies in separate mountainous areas in southern
Osaka Prefecture.
After checking missing persons
reports, police suspect the victim in the May case was a 14-year-old boy from
Kobe and the other a 21-year-old college student.
Suicide Web sites have made
headlines in recent years as a number of people have committed suicides in
groups after meeting through the Internet. These people typically commit
suicide through carbon monoxide poisoning by confining themselves in sealed
vehicles and burning charcoal stoves.
Maeue is believed to have posted
messages on several suicide Web sites.
Since his mid-20s, he was arrested
on several occasions for attempting to suffocate female passersby on streets.
In 2002, he was sentenced to 10 months for one of those incidents.
The Japan Times: Sunday, Aug. 7,
2005
(C) All rights reserved
3 die in fake net suicide pacts
Tokyo
August 8, 2005 - 9:36AM
August 8, 2005 - 9:36AM
A
man has confessed to killing three people, including a 14-year-old boy, by
forming fake suicide pacts through Japan's widely publicised suicide websites,
a newspaper says.
Hiroshi
Maeue, 36, told police he suffocated a young woman, a college student and the
boy and filmed the killings for his enjoyment, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.
The
suspect was arrested on Friday over the death of the female victim, 25-year-old
Michiko Nagamoto of the western city of Osaka. He found her name on a suicide
website and sent 20 emails urging they die together, the daily said.
He
suggested burning charcoal in a sealed car to kill themselves from carbon
monoxide poisoning - a method recommended on websites. Instead, he tied her up
in a rented car and killed her by sealing her nose and mouth with his hands,
the Yomiuri Shimbun said.
"I
wanted to watch a face in agony," Maeue was quoted as saying.
After
killing the woman, Maeue went on to look for more victims on suicide websites
and killed the boy and the university student, the report said.
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He
allegedly dumped their bodies in nearby mountains and a dam. Osaka police
declined comment on the case.
Japan
has seen a widely reported spate of internet suicides with lonely people
forming pacts online with strangers to support one another as they die.
At
least 65 people have died in such pacts since October, usually by sealing the
windows of cars and lighting antique charcoal burners for the carbon dioxide
poisoning.
Japan
has the highest suicide rate in the industrialised world, with 24.1 suicides
per 100,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization.
AFP
Japanese net suicide pact murderer to hang
Suffocated three victims
Posted in Law, 28th March 2007 10:28 GMT
A
Japanese man who arranged suicide pacts via the internet with three people he
subsequently killed has been sentenced to death, AFP reports.
Hiroshi
Maeue, 38, met a 25-year-old woman online and "proposed that they kill
themselves together". However, when they entered the car chosen to host
the suicide, he "bound her with ropes and choked her to death". His
other victims were "a 21-year-old college student and a 14-year-old junior
high school student", similarly dispatched.
Maeue
filmed the murders and even issued a ransom demand for the high school
student's return after killing him.
A
court-ordered examination confirmed Maeue did not suffer "any mental
disorder and that he was mentally competent". He pleaded guilty to the
charges.
In
sentencing Maeue to hang, Osaka District Court presiding Judge Kazuo Mizushima
said: "The crime was cruel, harsh, and outrageous. This was a crime aimed
at fulfilling the accused's sexual desire. It is difficult for him to change
these unusual characteristics. We cannot help but give the extreme
penalty."
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