A 66-year-old man has pleaded guilty to killing three members of his family and then setting their house on fire in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, in 2014.
Yoshiharu Matsui entered his plea during the opening session of his trial Monday at the Nagoya District Court in Okazaki, Fuji TV reported.
The court heard that Matsui woke up his neighbor at around 4:30 a.m. on May 25, 2014, and asked him to call 119 because his house was on fire. He then disappeared.
The fire destroyed the two-story wooden house and a building nextdoor before it was extinguished four hours later. The remains of three people were found in the ruins. They were identified as Matsui’s wife Ayako, 65, his daughter Rie, 37, and mother-in-law Kiyoko, 89.
Police found Matsui with two knives in a car in the parking lot of a shop in the neighboring city of Okazaki at around 7 a.m. the same day and arrested him on suspicion of violating the Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law. He also had a letter on him, alluding to his involvement in killing his three family members, police said.
Upon further questioning, Matsui – who was living apart from his family – confessed to strangling all three with a cord as they slept.
At the time, local media reported that police had been contacted twice by Matsui in the two months preceding the crime concerning a financial dispute triggered by Ayako giving more than 80 million yen to a female friend over a 15-year period. That woman has since been arrested for fraud, Fuji TV reported
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