IBARAKI (TR) – The Mito District Court has sentenced a 40-year-old former nurse to 20 years in prison for the murder of an elderly man at a care facility, while acquitting her of a second killing due to a lack of evidence, reports TV Asahi (July 7).
Emi Akama was accused of murdering two elderly residents at a nursing home in Koga City in 2020 by injecting air into their intravenous drip tubes with a syringe, causing fatal air embolisms.
In handing down the sentence on Tuesday, the presiding judge condemned Akama for the murder of 76-year-old Setsuji Yoshida.
“The defendant was witnessed pushing and pulling a syringe near Yoshida. It is highly likely she was injecting air at this time,” the judge said. “Using her position and medical knowledge to kill a defenseless victim while disguising it as a natural death is extremely vicious. The crime was indiscriminate and akin to a random street killing.”
However, the court delivered a split verdict, acquitting Akama of the murder of 84-year-old Kisaku Suzuki.
While the judge acknowledged that Suzuki’s death was a homicide caused by someone injecting air, the court found insufficient evidence to place Akama at the scene. “We cannot definitively place the defendant in Suzuki’s room,” the judge ruled, dismissing eyewitness testimony of her entering the room as potential memory lapses or misunderstandings.
During the trial, the defense argued that no crime had occurred, insisting the men had simply died of natural causes common in elderly care facilities.
Prosecutors, who had sought a conviction for both deaths, described the acts as “bold and cunning attempts at a perfect crime,” noting that by using air instead of poison, the killer intended for the deaths to be written off as natural.
