AICHI (TR) – A court here last month handed a 31-year-old man a life-in-prison term for murdering his wife and then-one-year-old daughter at their home in Niigata City three years ago.
According to the ruling handed down on November 22, Ken Watanabe, a former nurse, strangled his wife Haruka, then 29 years old, and 1-year-old daughter, Jun-chan, with a rope at their home in Minami Ward in November 2021.
In addition to murder, the defendant was accused of attempted murder and planned murder.
Seven months before the murders, he mixed sleeping pills into Haruka’s drinking water and did not stop her from going out in a car with Jun-chan in an attempt to kill them through a traffic accident that resulted.
Five months later, he also stole 10 bottles of potassium chloride from the hospital where he was working at the time in planning a murder.
During the trial, Watanabe admitted to murder. “There is no doubt about it,” he said. But he added, “I didn’t mean to kill my wife and daughter. I did steal the potassium chloride, but I did not intend to kill my wife.”
Watanabe married Haruka in May 2018. However, eight months later, in January 2019, he began an affair with a nurse at work.
The prosecution had sought a life term, pointing out that the motive for the murders was “to eliminate his wife and daughter, who were obstacles to continuing his relationship with his lover, who was a colleague at work.”
The defense sought a fixed-term sentence. “The defendant is gradually deepening his remorse and it cannot be said that he has no possibility of rehabilitation.”
“I want a divorce”
As previously reported, Watanabe had accumulated debts and stole funds from his wife’s bank account.
In one hearing on November 7, exactly three years after the murders, Watanabe described to the court the moments leading up to the murder of his wife and child.
That morning, Watanabe got into a dispute with Haruka about taking care of their child and housework, reports Fuji News Network (Nov. 10).
He told the court. “I couldn’t take it anymore, so I told her, “I want a divorce. I’m always the one doing the housework and you don’t do anything around the house. Please divorce me.’ At first, she seemed surprised, but then she said, ‘Are you really saying that? You had an affair, got into debt and used the money in my account to pay it off without my permission. So you have no right or qualification to say that. You should be grateful that you’ve been with me up until now.”
Watanabe went on to say that he went to closet to retrieve the rope he had left there beforehand. At that moment, Haruka’s family members in the gallery were sniffling and holding back tears that echoed throughout the courtroom.
About his daughter, he said, “I held her and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ But after that, I was really scared of my daughter.”
When asked why he was scared, he said, “Because I ran through the whole process of killing my wife, and my daughter’s face looked like my wife’s.”
He was then reminded that she was only one year old. “She’s only one year old, but I thought maybe she’d remember what happened in the future,” he said.
