Burglary turns to murder and now suicide

[Captain Japan]

18-day-old baby boy found murdered with nose, lips taped in Osaka house
Japan Today/Kyodo
Friday, January 18, 2008 at 07:12 EST

OSAKA ― An 18-day-old baby boy died after his mouth and nose were covered with adhesive tape at his home in Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture, Wednesday evening, police said Thursday. His mother Izumi Yamanaka, 22, was bound to a refrigerator with her mouth covered and hands tied with the tape, and tens of thousands of yen in baby-gift money in a congratulatory pouch has gone missing, police said. Yamanaka's 48-year-old mother reported the situation involving her daughter and infant grandson Reiya to rescue authorities at around 11:20 p.m. after returning home. Yamanaka sustained no serious injuries, while Reiya was pronounced dead after being taken to a hospital....more...

Mother of baby killed in Osaka murder-robbery dies in apparent suicide
Japan Today/Kyodo
Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 12:55 EST

OSAKA ― The mother of a newborn baby killed in a murder-robbery last week at home in Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture, died in an apparent suicide Wednesday, seemingly throwing herself off a pedestrian overpass, police said. Izumi Yamanaka, 22, was found on a street in Osaka City at around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday and confirmed dead shortly after. Police believe that she leaped from the nearby overpass and was run over by a car. Her baby boy Reiya, who was just 18 days old, died Jan 16 of suffocation. Yamaguchi told police a man intruded into their home and covered the baby's mouth and nose with adhesive tape and tied her up before making off with several tens of thousands of yen in cash. Police had been questioning her about the incident.

Moriguchi was the location of the hospital bungling in this thread.

[GuyJean]

A 'burdercide'..

GJ

[Molokidan]

Stories like this make me sick. How could no one have heard or noticed stuff like the baby's crying, etc. at 6:45 pm? Where was the father? What a tragedy.

[GuyJean]

What a tragic story.. People are disgusting sometimes..

But where is the father? Maybe spending the 'congratulatory gift' money at the race track?

GJ

[FG Lurker]

I dunno, this whole story seemed very odd from the start.

I would not be surprised to find that the mother killed the baby and then tried to make it look like a home-invasion style attack.

If she was already mentally unstable enough to kill her newborn son then the cops questioning her about this could certainly lead to a jump off a pedestrian overpass in front of an oncoming car.

[Catoneinutica]

I dunno, this whole story seemed very odd from the start.

I would not be surprised to find that the mother killed the baby and then tried to make it look like a home-invasion style attack.

If she was already mentally unstable enough to kill her newborn son then the cops questioning her about this could certainly lead to a jump off a pedestrian overpass in front of an oncoming car.

Agreed. There's a whiff of Susan Smith about this very sad story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Smith

[Greji]

Agreed. There's a whiff of Susan Smith about this very sad story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Smith

There is an amazing (I'm not sure that is the right word) tendency among Japanese wives when committing suicide to kill their children and then themselves. I've asked my resident rice cooker about this and she says that they probably don't want to leave the children as a burden (?) to others.

and they call us furyou....

[gomichild]

I think that there have been several cases of severe postpartum-depression reported - and each one is tragic.

Mental health issues are already shoved under the carpet here as it is - and this one I know is often ignored. Your ob/gyn doesn't really care about your mental state at any time - and unless you actively seek out available counseling for it in your area then you are pretty much left alone as it appears this poor woman was.

[Mike Oxlong]

I know women who've looking into counseling for utsubyou while pregnant, and were told that that nothing could be done, as drugs can't be prescribed in pregnancy. Nursing mothers may get the same song and dance.

[joshuaism]

I dunno, this whole story seemed very odd from the start.

I would not be surprised to find that the mother killed the baby and then tried to make it look like a home-invasion style attack.

If she was already mentally unstable enough to kill her newborn son then the cops questioning her about this could certainly lead to a jump off a pedestrian overpass in front of an oncoming car.

Wouldn't that just be too convenient for the police? After an hour or two of pointed questioning, a guilt ridden mother commits suicide, confirming the suspisions already formed in the investigators' minds.

Guilty or not, it's a sad state of affairs. Really unfortunate that a young, unwed mother didn't have the support to handle a child or the loss thereof.

[ttjereth]

Re: The whole thing about the mother doing it, doesn't the article say she was tied up?

Color me naive, but wouldn't it be difficult to tie herself up after she killed her own baby?

I know the trend on here is to respond to everything with either dark or "plain old, slowly destorying my faith in humanity" humor or just plain old cynicism, but isn't possible she killed herself because of the trauma she went through???

[American Oyaji]

Yeah, I'm in agreement with ttjereth.

She was bound to a refrigerator. That's not something you can do easily by yourelf and I'm sure the police would have known if it was escapable or not.

[Takechanpoo]

This incident is a put-up job by this "poor" mother.

[GuyJean]

.. and I'm sure the police would have known if it was escapable or not.

:rofl:

CSI is a TV show!..

GJ

[dimwit]

Re: The whole thing about the mother doing it, doesn't the article say she was tied up?

Color me naive, but wouldn't it be difficult to tie herself up after she killed her own baby?

Well the news reports seem to be very vague on exactly what happened. Was she tied up or did she just tell the police she was tied up? Who if anyone found her? Why even bother tying up the baby?

[joshuaism]

Two tabloids and the Japan Times have decided to lay their suspicions on the mother.

Baby's short life was a tragedy in two acts - Japan Times

The brutal mercilessness of the crime exceeded the usual shocking tabloid fare; it bordered on the unspeakable.

Shukan Bunshun (Jan. 31) chooses not to dispute the eyewitness account directly, but quotes a police source who points out several inconsistencies between evidence at the crime scene and the disconsolate young mother's account.

The infant's death clearly devastated Reiya's 22-year-old father, whose name is not mentioned in the news reports. A university senior, he had known Izumi from their high-school days.

While Shukan Bunshun treads cautiously, Shukan Shincho (Jan. 31) is openly skeptical. Two characters in the latter's accusatory headline — kyogen (a madeup story) — are echoed in the text, underscoring its unmistakable implication that no murder-robbery occurred. And its three-page investigative article produces no evidence corroborating Izumi's account of the incident, but much to contradict it.