Japanese mother who starved to kill a 5-year-old child “indoctrinated by a friend”

In Japan, a mother who gradually reduced food to her five-year-old son and eventually starved to death was arrested by the police. In particular, the fact that this woman was “brainwashed” by an acquaintance and committed such a terrible crime is revealing, shocking Japanese society.

According to Japanese media such as the Asahi Shimbun on the 3rd, the Fukuoka police officers in charge of protection for Rie Ikari, 39, and his acquaintance, Emiko Akahori, 48, living in Sasaguri, Fukuoka Prefecture on the 2nd. He was arrested on charges of organic lethality. It is alleged that Ikari’s 5-year-old son, Shojiro, was not given proper food for several months and eventually resulted in death.

According to the police announcement, Shojiro was found dead in April of last year in a mansion where four people lived together, including his mother, older brother, and older sister. At the time of discovery, it is said that the child weighed only about half the weight of a child of his age, about 10 kg. The cause of death was found to be starvation due to malnutrition, and my mother, Ikari, took the lead.

During the investigation, a strange relationship between Ikari and his acquaintance Akahori was revealed. The two met five years ago as parents of the same kindergarten and made friends. Since then, Ikari is said to have turned into a controlled relationship by relying on Akahori for everything in her life.

After receiving a bankbook and cash, Akahori was given a bankbook and cash to Ikari, who had a divorce and raised three children as a single mother, saying, “I will investigate the relationship between the divorced husband and the woman.” Around the summer of 2019, he ordered the family to reduce the amount of meals they eat, saying, “To win the alimony lawsuit, you have to save money.”

The Ikari family continued to live in poverty with the groceries that Akahori brought, according to the police. Akahori installed surveillance cameras inside the Ikari suspect’s house and instructed him to “don’t feed too many children because I’m monitoring it” The three brothers and sisters, including Shojiro, fell into nutritional deficiencies in August last year, and Shojiro eventually died.

The police are investigating the exact details of the incident as Akahori was trying to steal money by controlling Ikari economically and mentally. In addition to being killed, Akahori is also accused of fraud and theft.

Mom Ikari admitted to the charges belatedly, saying, “I didn’t know I was going to die.” However, Akahori is known to have denied the crime, saying, “It is true that we were close, but we have never ordered or managed the amount of meals.”

In the process, the government’s child protection system did not work properly. In February of last year, a neighbor of the Ikari family made it strange that the children were too thin, so they reported suspicion of abuse to the police. The police visited Ikari’s house to check the children’s condition and informed the child counseling center that there was a possibility of giving up childrearing, but it turned out that no appropriate measures were taken.

According to Japanese media, the number of incidents that Japanese police notified to child counseling centers on suspicion of abuse last year exceeded 100,000 for the first time since 2004. The authorities are aware that domestic abuse is on the rise as children cannot go to school and stay at home due to a novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19).

Tokyo = Correspondent Lee Young-hee [email protected]