The story below is originally published on Mainichi Daily News by Mainichi Shinbun (http://mdn.mainichi.jp). |
They admitted inventing its kinky features, or rather deliberately mistranslating them from the original gossip magazine. |
In fact, this is far from the general Japanese' behavior or sense of worth. |
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Accused multiple murderess pins it all on allegedly incestuous stepson 2006,12,29
Shukan Josei 1/2-9 By Ryann Connell
The trial of accused mass murderess Chizuko Okamoto is turning into a sordid affair, awash with tales of incest and unrequited familial love, according to Shukan Josei (1/2-9).
Okamoto, 55, is currently being tried for the murder of her 19-year-old daughter Rikako, but is also suspected of involvement in the decades-old deaths of another three sons, two of them infants.
A stepson, 35-year-old Minehiro, was also found hanged in Okamoto's apartment in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, when Okamoto was arrested in May.
Okamoto has since laid the blame on Minehiro for the killing she is accused of committing.
Yet Minehiro's biological mother says she bears no hatred for Okamoto.
"I don't really hate Chizuko," the mother tells Shukan Josei.
"Everybody around me is saying that I do, though."
Chizuko Okamoto is the only link between the five bodies police discovered on that morning in May.
The first corpse they found was that of Minehiro, who was hanged near the entrance.
Minehiro was the son of a noodle restaurant owner -- with whom Okamoto began an affair in the mid-'70s -- and the woman now talking to the media.
After breaking up with Minehiro's mother, the noodle cook married another woman.
Okamoto eventually forced the noodle cook to give up that wife and moved in with him and his family, including the then-youthful Minehiro.
"After Chizuko ousted the noodle cook's wife, she had two children with him -- Rikako (the daughter she is accused of killing) and a boy, Toshihide (who went missing as a child two decades ago, but whose body was found in Okamoto's apartment earlier this year). They also had another two boys, but their infant bodies were found, too. They were all found dead," Minehiro's biological mother tells Shukan Josei.
Okamoto's Tokyo District Court murder trial has been packed with despicable details.
It started with the opening hearing, which concentrated on the prosecution casting doubt on Okamoto's character.
"In prosecutors' opening statement, they said she moved into the Hiratsuka apartment in around 1997, together with Rikako. Okamoto couldn't find a job and was living off what she could borrow from friends. When people started come after her for repayment, she used excuses like her family's ill health and Rikako's death to avoid paying them," a reporter for a national daily tells the women's weekly.
"Okamoto was always running away from something. Her sloppy lifestyle was laid bare for all to see."
Prosecutors called one of Rikako's old boyfriends as a witness.
The boyfriend told the court of how Okamoto had threatened Rikako with a knife and the frequency with which the daughter had expressed fear for her life.
Okamoto was ready to fight back, though, and even steamier accusations were hurled in her second, and most recent, hearing.
"Minehiro killed Rikako and then he committed suicide," Shukan Josei quotes one of Okamoto's lawyers saying at the second hearing.
Okamoto also accused her stepson of molesting her as she slept.
The accused killer also said Minehiro was behind all the killings that resulted in so many bodies being found in her home.
She added that he killed himself because his attempts to rape his stepsister Rikako had failed.
Hearings will continue in Okamoto's case in 2007. (By Ryann Connell)