Osaka woman acquitted in murder retrial in daughter’s death

OSAKA--The Osaka District Court acquitted a woman here on Aug. 10 in a retrial who had been wrongly convicted of murdering her daughter in 1995 and released after serving 20 years in prison.

Keiko Aoki, 52, had been sentenced to life in prison in connection with a 1995 fire at her home that killed her 11-year-old daughter.

Because of the possibility that Aoki was wrongly convicted of murder and arson, she was released in October 2015. In the Aug. 10 ruling, the court did not use her confession obtained during an interrogation as evidence.

The Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office will abandon its right to appeal to a higher court, so Aoki's acquittal will be finalized Aug. 10.

In the July 1995 incident, a fire broke out in Aoki’s house in Osaka’s Higashi-Sumiyoshi Ward that killed her daughter Megumi, who was taking a bath at the time.

Aoki and her common-law husband, Tatsuhiro Boku, 50, were arrested on suspicion of pouring gasoline in the garage, setting it ablaze with a lighter and killing Megumi to collect on a life insurance policy.

In the Aug. 10 ruling, however, the district court acknowledged that it was difficult for the couple to have set the fire as indicated in their confessions. Both pleaded not guilty at their trial.

Boku, who was also convicted on both counts and given a life sentence, was freed in October after spending 20 years behind bars.

The court's ruling on Aug. 10 was based on an experiment the defense lawyers conducted while seeking their retrials. In the experiment, gasoline was dispersed as mentioned in their confessions.

The liquid evaporated and spread to the pilot burner of the hot water furnace, resulting in an explosive fire in only seconds.

As for the cause of the blaze, the court examined the possibility that gasoline leaked from a mini-wagon parked in the garage. Examining vehicles of the same model, the court concluded that fuel could leak out under certain conditions.

Among cases in postwar Japan in which death sentences or life imprisonment sentences were finalized, Aoki’s marked the ninth in which the verdict was later overturned and the defendant found innocent in a retrial.