A man on trial for the murders of an American man and his wife and daughter in Hanno, Saitama Prefecture, on Christmas Day in 2022, on Monday pleaded not guilty.
Jun Saito, 43, told the Saitama District Court at his first hearing, "It's not something I know about."
His defense counsel argued he was not criminally responsible due to diminished mental capacity.
According to the indictment, Saito killed William Bishop, a 69-year-old U.S. national, his Japanese wife Izumi Morita, 68, and their daughter Sophianna Megumi Morita, 32, who lived in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, and who was visiting her parents, at around 7:30 a.m. on Dec 25, 2022.
Saito also allegedly set fire to Bishop's residence. Police found a partially burnt polyethylene tank with traces of kerosene at the house.
According to the police, a security camera at the residence had recorded a scene of the attack, including a man who appeared to be Saito.
Although the three were found dead outside the house, traces of blood discovered inside the residence suggest they were first attacked indoors, police have said.
Police confiscated multiple blunt objects from Saito's home. DNA from blood found on clothing and gloves seized from his home matched that of all three victims.
Prosecutors said Saito, who lived in the neighborhood, committed the crime out of a strong desire for revenge over an earlier arrest for vandalizing a car owned by Bishop's family and the compensation demanded by the family.
Saito spent around 10 months undergoing psychiatric examinations before prosecutors pressed charges against him in December 2023. The court will deliver its ruling on March 16.
A long-time resident of Japan, Bishop was a board member of Temple University Japan from 2010 to 2018, later becoming an emeritus member.
© KYODO
24 Comments
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farhaan
The least punishment shouldn't be less than death penalty.
DanteKH
no guilty??
Spitfire
Bet he voted for Sanseito.
carp_boya
I remember reading this news around Christmas that year while celebrated Christmas with my family. It’s always so sad when innocent people die in this way. But I guess because it was a foreigner and his Japanese wife and daughter, it hit a little harder.
Gaijinjland
He will get the death penalty. International Politics are involved and it’s a tragic embarrassment for Japan.
3RENSHO
"It's not something I know about."
(Good luck with that plea...)
HANG THE MURDERER!
wallace
Three years to come to court.
Garthgoyle
I hope he gets either the death penalty or a life sentence.
obladi
Hard the defense to argue diminished mental capacity in light of this backstory. But, without a confession, the prosecution will require hard physical evidence.
Meiyouwenti
All of you liberal-minded posters who passionately advocate abolition of death penalty, where are you?
Nyan
That b as ta rd deserves to rot in hell. At minimum, he should face the de ath penalty.
Kingz
This unfortunate incident happened, but it doesn’t come up often in the media as a reminder to people that violent crime is an individual proclivity, and it could happen to anyone anywhere and foreigners are not exempt from falling victim too. I hope justice will be served in a fair way without a biased justification of mental illness. We all know what a “non guilty” plea in the face of overwhelming evidence means in the Japanese justice system.
wallace
I am here. I have held the view for more than 50 years that capital punishment should be abolished. Supported by 150 countries that have done that. One wrongful execution is one too many.
WoodyLee
The The Gallows Pleas anything less is disrespect to the 3 human lives and their families he destroyed.
quercetum
If a crime tears through a community like this then the state has every right to reach for the strongest legal penalty it’s got. Not out of vengeance, but out of the basic, stubborn belief that some acts are so far beyond the pale that anything less feels like a shrug.
OssanAmerica
Death penalty for this one.
Antonio Diego Molina Garcia
Death penalty, everywhere and in all circumstances, is useless, only reflects the impotency of a society to deal with violence, and if anything, will transfer the violence and hatred from the crime, to the society that exerts this legal violence.
Countries with no dead penalty (and an especial rejection to it, like my country, Spain), have less criminal killings than those with death penalty. Just compare the 2024 statistic of 0,69 /100 000 habitants data of Spain with the approx. 5 /100000 of the USA…
Speed
3 dead is dead. I don't care how stupid he pleads.
SwissToni
The hard evidence described (cctv of the man at the victims property, DNA evidence at Saito’s home) is pretty damning and the back story pretty much precludes mental incapacity. It seems likely, to me at least, Saito will be found guilty and sentenced to death due to the number of victims. I don’t agree with the death penalty, certainly not in the form of state sponsored revenge. Given a full life sentence Saito could spend 30-40 years in prison, that’ll do.
David K Anderson
Or Japan's 0.23/100000... with the death penalty. Oops...
Ah_so
That's why sentencing is left to the courts rather than families. Of course families want the death penalty, and they would want it for much more minor crimes as well.
u_s__reamer
To kill a family of three is clearly a case of a violent mental illness, to which the human brain of a small number of humans is prone and so the death penalty would serve as no deterrent to this kind of homicide whereas the killing of tens or hundreds of thousands of human beings with malice aforethought by power-wielding individuals who believe they are above the law of Man might be prevented if they knew a noose or the guillotine would be the automatic consequence for their monstrous inhumanity.
kaimycahl
Wow!! Cameras don't lie! Make you wonder who was actually seeking the treatment he had a strong desire for revenge over an earlier arrest for vandalizing a car owned by Bishop's family and the compensation demanded by the family. This guy spent around 10 months undergoing psychiatric examinations before prosecutors pressed charges"
1glenn
A tragedy.