Ex-Care Worker Gets 20 Years for Killing Elderly Home Resident

Mito, Ibaraki Pref., July 7 (Jiji Press)--A local court on Tuesday sentenced a former worker at an elderly care home in the city of Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture, east of Tokyo, to 20 years in prison for murdering a resident of the facility six years ago.

Public prosecutors charged Megumi Akama, 40, with murdering two residents of the elderly home by injecting air into their intravenous drip tubes while she was working at the facility in 2020.

In its ruling in the lay judge trial, Mito District Court in the prefecture acknowledged that both residents were murdered.

But it found Akama not guilty of killing one of them, with Presiding Judge Takeshi Yamazaki saying, "There is reasonable doubt to believe that the defendant is the culprit."

Specifically, on the death of 84-year-old Kisaku Suzuki in May 2020, the judge said there is "strong suspicion" that the testimony by a former co-worker at the facility who claimed to have witnessed Akama enter the male resident's room has "changed," noting that there is a possibility that a staff member other than the defendant may have entered the room around the time when the crime took place.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]