High Court Backs Ex-Wife's Acquittal over Death of "Don Juan of Kishu"

Osaka, March 23 (Jiji Press)--Osaka High Court on Monday upheld a lower court ruling that found a 30-year-old women not guilty over the death in 2018 of her then 77-year-old husband, a wealthy businessman nicknamed the "Don Juan of Kishu," in Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan.

The high court in Osaka Prefecture, near Wakayama, dismissed the prosecution's appeal against Wakayama District Court's December 2024 ruling. The prosecution had demanded a life sentence for the defendant, Saki Sudo.

Sudo was indicted in May 2021 on suspicion of murdering Kosuke Nozaki by making him take a lethal dose of a stimulant drug at their home in the Wakayama city of Tanabe on May 24, 2018. Kishu is the old name for the region that includes Wakayama.

As there is no direct evidence of the defendant's involvement, the assessment of circumstantial evidence has been the central issue in the trial.

Kazuhiro Murakoshi, presiding judge at the high court, said the fact that Sudo had obtained something like a stimulant drug in advance and was alone with Nozaki at their home and moved between the first floor and the second floor, where Nozaki's room was located, more often than usual on the day of the incident "could be a circumstance raising strong suspicions" that she murdered Nozaki.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]