By IKUKO ABE/ Staff Writer
July 19, 2023 at 13:30 JST
Oiso port in Kanagawa Prefecture where Teruko Fujiwara was murdered in November 2022 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
ODAWARA, Kanagawa Prefecture--An octogenarian who admitted to pushing his wife into the ocean while she was confined to a wheelchair was sentenced to three years in prison for her murder.
Hiroshi Fujiwara, 82, admitted to killing his partially paralyzed wife, Teruko, 79, off of Oiso port here after caring for her for 40 years.
“The wife did nothing wrong, so her feeling of despair and chagrin at being pushed into the ocean by her husband who she trusted is unfathomable,” said Presiding Judge Noburo Kiyama of the Odawara branch of the Yokohama District Court.
According to the July 18 ruling, Teruko died by drowning.
The incident occurred in November 2022.
Teruko became partially paralyzed after she suffered a cerebral infarction in 1982.
By all accounts, the couple was close. Hiroshi took care of her in the decades that followed but reached a point of despair after relatives recommended that the couple enter a facility for senior citizens.
Hiroshi said he preferred dying with his wife rather than entering such a facility.
Pointing out that Teruko told relatives she looked forward to entering the facility, the court concluded, “the defendant became unilaterally pessimistic and did not even bother to take his wife’s feelings into consideration.”
Defense lawyers asked for leniency on grounds Hiroshi was too proud to seek help from others because of his strong sense of personal responsibility.
But the court ruled that the case was unlike others involving defendants who had become fatigued with taking care of a loved one for many years because Hiroshi failed to seek out support from other family members.
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