Gangster's wife, younger son sentenced to death for four murders

The Fukuoka District Court sentenced a woman and her younger son to death Tuesday for killing four people in a scheme to rob them in 2004 in Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, about 70 kilometers south of central Fukuoka. The court handed down the sentences against Mami Kitamura, 47, and her son Takahiro, 22, as demanded by prosecutors.

The two were found guilty of killing acquaintance Sayoko Takami, 58, her elder son Tatsuyuki, 18, and his friend Junichi Hara, 17, on Sept 18, 2004, and also of abandoning their bodies in a minivehicle in a river. The son was also found guilty of an additional charge of killing Takami's younger son Joji, 15, and of abandoning his body in a river.