AICHI (TR) – The grieving father of a 23-year-old woman killed when a man jumped from a 12-story apartment building and landed on her has marched into the Nagoya District Public Prosecutors Office to demand that the suspect face murder charges, not merely gross negligence, reports TBS News (Oct. 29).
Tomoki Inaba was walking along a sidewalk in the Sakae district of Nagoya’s Naka Ward one night in July, returning home with a friend, when Nobunari Taguchi, 29, plummeted from the building above her and struck her. She died at the scene. The area is described as busy with foot traffic even late at night.
Taguchi, who is believed to have been attempting suicide, was initially unconscious but later recovered. He was arrested in August on suspicion of gross negligence resulting in death, police said.
Should be murder
Her father, Kenji Inaba, is having none of it. On October 28 he submitted a written opinion to the Nagoya District Public Prosecutors Office arguing that the charge should be murder, on the basis of what lawyers call “dolus eventualis,” or contingent intent: the idea that Taguchi knew someone below could die and jumped anyway.
“What I want most is to clear my daughter’s name,” Inaba said. “The simple fact is that she had a perfectly happy day, and it was suddenly taken from her.”
The father says the case for murder rests on a chilling exchange. During a jail visit, Inaba told the network, he put the question directly to Taguchi: did he jump regardless of whether anyone was below, not caring if they lived or died? “His answer was an affirmative, ‘Yes, that’s right,'” the father said. “To me, that is a statement that points to contingent intent, not mere negligence.” Taguchi, however, has told police he does not remember, according to the report.
Inaba launched an online petition on September 21 calling for a murder charge. It surpassed 47,000 signatures within roughly one month. On October 28 he delivered both the petition and his formal written opinion to prosecutors.
Accident
The family’s central anguish is that Tomoki’s death risks being written off as an unfortunate accident. In the months since July, the father has returned to the scene five times, including at the same late-night hour the tragedy occurred, counting pedestrians himself to document how busy the street was. He has also met with Taguchi three times.
The case is not without precedent. In October 2020, a male high school student jumped from the roof of a commercial building in Umeda, Osaka City, killing a female university student on the street below.
In August 2024, a female high school student jumped from a commercial building in Yokohama City, killing a 32-year-old woman passing by. In both cases the jumpers died, and both were referred to prosecutors posthumously on suspicion of gross negligence resulting in death, not murder.
“There is no greater injustice”
Legal commentators note that proving contingent intent in such cases faces a high bar: prosecutors must establish beyond doubt that the jumper consciously accepted the possibility of killing someone below.
The Nagoya District Public Prosecutors Office has ordered a psychiatric evaluation of Taguchi to assess his criminal responsibility. That process is scheduled to conclude by January 13, 2027.
“Someone who wanted to live died, and someone who wanted to die lived,” Inaba said. “There is no greater injustice than that. I still cannot accept it. Every day I hope it will turn out to be a lie.”
