A 79-year-old man admitted stabbing a male acquaintance to death but denied killing the man's wife, as his lay-judge trial over a double murder and eight burned homes opened at the Chiba District Court on the 10th.
Kaoru Sakamaki is charged with murder and with arson of inhabited structures over the December 2024 attack in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, and the fires that followed.
He told the court he had killed the husband. Of the wife he said, "I haven't even seen her face," and denied her murder.
He admitted setting fire to his own home but denied arson over the buildings the flames spread to. "I never thought the neighbors would burn," he said.
The prosecution's case
According to the indictment, Sakamaki stabbed a married couple in their 50s in the chest and back with a butcher knife at a residential property in Kashiwa on December 18, 2024.
He then poured gasoline on his own home and two nearby houses and threw in lit newspaper, the indictment says. Eight homes in all, including neighboring houses, burned to the ground.
In its opening statement, the prosecution said Sakamaki was angry that about 7 million yen he had lent the husband had not been repaid. "I decided to kill him because I thought he had forgotten his debt of gratitude," the prosecution quoted him as saying.
Prosecutors argued he intended to kill the wife as well, citing 18 wounds on her chest, neck and other parts of her body.
On the arson, the prosecution said Sakamaki had grown reckless after his divorce and set out to burn down the homes of neighbors he disliked along with his own.
Of the eight homes destroyed, prosecutors said he knew the five he did not set alight directly could catch fire because the houses stood close together.
The defense
The defense argued Sakamaki never noticed the wife was nearby and had no intent to kill her. The knife struck her body as he attacked her husband repeatedly, the defense said, and he had no motive to kill her.
On the five homes he did not ignite, the defense said he bore no ill will toward the people living in them and so acted without intent.
Disruption in court
Sakamaki shouted "I'm prepared to die" immediately after entering the courtroom, delaying the start of proceedings by a substantial margin.
While a prosecutor read the indictment, he also yelled, "Don't give me that," forcing the court to recess.