A frail-looking man tearfully bowed to the judge who had just given him a scolding and a prison sentence.

The 82-year-old defendant on July 5 pleaded guilty to murdering his paralyzed, wheelchair-using wife by rolling her into the ocean.

It was a chilling act, and one with an unusual motive.

The death of the 79-year-old woman was not a mercy killing. The husband bore no ill-feelings toward her, nor did he feel overburdened by caring for her for about 40 years.

Instead, he stubbornly felt that he, and he alone, should be the one tending to the needs of his beloved partner, even when he became too weak to do the job.

His obsession grew so strong that he would rather see her die than let anyone else take care of her.

“This case is unlike typical cases of caregiver burnout,” the judge said.

STROKE IN 1982

The couple met at work and wed in 1967.

As a supermarket retail buyer, the husband traveled around the country and was absent from home for 10 days a month.

He told the court that everything was going smoothly at the time.

But in 1982, his wife suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of her body.

When her doctor asked the husband why he didn’t notice the warning signs, he blamed himself for being so absorbed in his work that he neglected his home and family.

He vowed to himself that he would provide care for his wife for the rest of her life.

While still working for the same company, he raised their two sons of elementary and junior high school age and took care of his wife at home.

To increase the flexibility of his working time, he left the company in 1986 to manage a convenience store and run a shoe-repair company.

But his businesses suffered financial difficulties in 2007, and he filed for personal bankruptcy.

Still, he saved his pension and bought a house in Oiso, his wife’s hometown in Kanagawa Prefecture, in 2015.

He fixed the house multiple times to make it more accessible for his wife in her wheelchair. He installed handrails in the bathroom, and he set up a ramp at the entrance every time she went in and out of the house.

The man felt happy when she enjoyed his Kansai-style cooking and told him how delicious his meals were.

In 2020, he was rushed to a hospital after suffering from heatstroke. His eldest son, regretting how he had left the entire caregiving burden to his father, decided to take action concerning his mother.

The son asked an acquaintance who was a care manager to have his mother admitted to a nursing home on a three-month contract.

But as soon as the husband recovered from the heatstroke, he demanded that the facility discharge his wife.

He also rejected the advice of his worried son, and his wife left the nursing home after less than one month.

“I had been living with her and always staying close to her for the past 40 years, so I felt unbearably lonely,” the man told the court.

He said he just wanted to take care of her.

However, his wife’s condition weakened, and she eventually became unable to get on and off her wheelchair by herself.

His strength also declined as he reached his 80s, and he had difficulty lifting her body.

The situation also took a mental toll on him.

He lost sleep worrying about what would happen to his wife if he could not take care of her. And he started to think that murder-suicide was the solution.

Both the eldest son and the care manager felt the husband was mentally pushed to the brink.

To reduce his caregiving burden, they started procedures to admit his wife to a health care facility for the elderly, with the son covering the expenses.

They also told the husband that she could possibly return to him for at-home care if her rehabilitation was successful.

But every time the husband gave his consent, he later took back his words and told them to drop the whole idea.

On Nov. 2, 2022, he received a phone call informing him that a meeting would be held the following week to discuss his wife’s admittance to the facility.

After the phone call, the husband took his wife to Oiso port on the pretext that their son wanted to talk to her.

There were people fishing and others around the place.

Puzzled, she asked her husband why their son hadn’t shown up. The husband then pushed her in her wheelchair around the port.

Around 5:20 p.m., when it was beginning to get dark, he gave her wheelchair a hard shove into the sea from the quay.

His wife screamed “no” before she sank face-down into the water.

‘I WAS DETERMINED’

During his trial at the Odawara branch of the Yokohama District Court, the defendant was repeatedly asked from all sides about his obsession with taking care of his wife by himself.

Prosecutor: When you decided to care for her on your own, who were you thinking of?

Defendant: My wife.

Prosecutor: Why did you make that decision?

Defendant: Since my childhood, I thought it was only natural for family members to take care of their own.

Defense lawyer: Why couldn’t you ask someone for help when you were mentally cornered?

Defendant: I didn’t tell anyone because I was determined to take care of her on my own for as long as I was alive.

Citizen judge: Why didn’t you think about entrusting her to experts and admitting her into the facility?

Defendant: It was not that I didn’t trust the facility, but I just thought I’d take care of my wife, and this determination was my emotional support.

SELF-CENTERED MOTIVATION

Prosecutors pointed out that the defendant ignored the reality that it would be difficult to provide nursing care by himself. They said he committed the crime due to his self-centered motivation to take care of her until the end.

They sought a seven-year prison sentence.

Defense lawyers argued the defendant was under enormous mental strain at the time, and they requested a suspended sentence.

On July 18, the court sentenced the man to three years in prison without suspension for murder.

“He became unilaterally pessimistic about not being able to take care of the victim on his own,” Presiding Judge Noburo Kiyama said.

The judge noted that the defendant intentionally rejected support from others, ignored the victim’s feelings and committed the crime.

After handing down the sentence, Kiyama said: “I’m certain she wanted to live out her life. While you serve time, I want you to give serious thought about why this had to happen. I hope you will live the rest of your life in peace when you come back.”

The defendant bowed, shedding tears.

Both the prosecutors and the defense lawyers decided not to appeal the sentence, and the ruling was finalized.