SHIZUOKA (TR) – Shizuoka Prefectural Police have arrested a 22-year-old man in the beating death of his father at the residence they shared in Hamamatsu City, reports TV Asahi (Jan. 23).
At 3:30 a.m. on Monday, Ryota Masuda telephoned police to report that he had “beaten his father to death with a baseball bat.”
Officers from the Hamamatsu-Higashi Police Station arriving at the residence, located in Higashi Ward, found Keisuke Masuda, 57, collapsed and bleeding in the first-floor living room. He was later confirmed dead.
Ryota was subsequently arrested on charges of murder, according to the Yoimiuri Shimbun (Jan. 23).
Ryota’s mother also lives in the residence. She was not home at the time of the incident.
Police are now attempting to determine a motive for the crime.
Update: Masuda was not prosecuted in the case, according to Nippon News Network (July 18). The Hamamatsu branch of the Shizuoka District Public Prosecutor’s Office said that the reason for non-prosecution was based on “the results of an expert examination of the mental condition [of the defendant] at the time of the crime.”
