In a follow-up to a case that shocked Japan and led to national soul-searching on the issue of testing pre-school age children, Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office has charged Mitsuko Yamada, 35, with murdering a two-year-old-girl and abandoning her body, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday.
The paper said that prosecutors believe Yamada was increasingly bitter toward Haruna Wakayama's mother, which resulted in the girl's murder.
Yamada and the Wakayamas live within walking distance of each other in the Bunkyo district of Tokyo.
According to the indictment, Yamada took Haruna, who was playing in the yard of Otowa Kindergarten in the Bunkyo district, to a public toilet near a shrine and strangled the girl with a scarf, the Yomirui reported.
She then put Haruna's body in a black bag, went home with her son and took a bullet train to her family's home in Oigawacho in Shizuoka prefecture, before burying the body in the backyard at about 4:30pm the same day, the indictment said.
Yamada reportedly told investigators that she resented Haruna's mother and was tortured by the thought that she had to socialize with the mother for another three years if their daughters went to the same kindergarten, the Yomiuri reported. However, Yamada was reportedly unaware that Haruna had already been accepted by a kindergarten attached to a national university.
According to the investigators, Yamada grabbed Haruna on an impulse when she spotted her alone.
She reportedly said that she would give a full explanation for the killing during opening arguments at court, the paper said.
One prosecutor said that Yamada has refused to talk because she does not want to further hurt the feelings of the girl's family, the Yomiuri reported.
After Yamada turned herself in to police on Nov. 25, she was stupefied and cried all day, saying she was sorry for having killed the innocent child because of hard feelings toward her mother, the investigators said.
From time to time, Yamada would break down and cry, but she has regained her composure, prosecutors said, adding that she is aware of the public's reaction to the case by reading the local newspapers.
According to the Yomiruri, prosecutors said that since Yamada's confession was detailed and consistent with objective facts, they believe that Yamada was probably cool-headed when she killed the girl.
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