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Couple convicted of 2021 murder of Tokyo high school girl

TOKYO - The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday convicted a married couple of the 2021 murder of an 18-year-old high school girl in Yamanashi Prefecture.

The court sentenced Shohei Komori and his wife Izumi to 23 and 18 years in prison, respectively, for the abduction and murder of the Tokyo girl, who was strangled with a rope and stabbed several times in the back with a knife at a storage shed.

The court found their acts "brutal and well-planned." Presiding Judge Takenobu Someya said Shohei Komori had developed an obsession with the girl, whom he met on social media, and killed her out of fear of police finding out that he had abducted her.

The court judged that Izumi Komori, 30, had gone along with her 29-year-old unemployed husband from Gunma Prefecture, in the crime due to her psychological dependence on him.

But the court rejected her defense team's claim that she was in a state of diminished capacity. ...continue reading

Source: ANNnewsCH

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