Woman denies burying high school classmate alive in Chiba
(Mainichi Japan)
CHIBA -- A 19-year-old woman accused of robbing her former high school classmate and then murdering her by burying her alive in a field in 2015 denied the murder allegations during her first lay judge trial at the Chiba District Court on Jan 13.
According to the court indictment, the woman is accused of conspiring with her then boyfriend Yuki Ide, 22, and his 21-year-old friend Shota Nakano to rob and kill the victim. Ide has been indicted for murder and robbery and Nakano is currently appealing a life imprisonment sentence in relation to the incident.
The 19-year-old woman, who is suspected of being the mastermind in the incident, stands accused of abducting the victim -- who was from the city of Funabashi in Chiba Prefecture and who had also gone to the same high school as the woman -- from a street in the city of Chiba's Chuo Ward in the evening on April 19, 2015. She allegedly robbed the victim and buried her alive on the following day in a field in the town of Shibayama in the prefecture, causing her to die by suffocation.
She stated in the court, "Although I acknowledge the robbery, the other defendants and I did not discuss murdering the victim beforehand, and we had no intention to kill her."
