TOCHIGI (TR) – A 27-year-old man suspected in the stabbing death of his girlfriend in Utsunomiya City last year admitted to the allegations as at the opening of his trial on Tuesday, reports the Sankei Shimbun (June 7).
At the Tochigi District Court, Ryu Sugeno, a former factory worker, admitted to stabbing Sakiko Nemoto, a 28-year-old nurse, to death and stealing her vehicle in December.
“[It was] relentless and brutal,” the prosecution said in its opening statement. “The motivation was selfishness, and there is no room for a pardon.”
On December 10, Sugeno allegedly used a kitchen knife to stab Nemoto inside her residence, according to the indictment. The results of an autopsy revealed that Nemoto had been stabbed in about 10 locations on her body.
“With her seeing another man, I wanted to kill her,” the suspect was quoted by police at the time.
Sugeno was later apprehended after he was found inside Nemoto’s vehicle in Motomiya City, Fukushima Prefecture.
The defense argued that there are points with which the court should find sympathy with. “He promised to get married [to the victim] once he became a regular employee and gained stable income, and he worked hard at that,” the defense said. “However, he acted of out impulse in killing her after she said she was seeing another man.”
