Prosecutors demanded Friday that a 27-year-old man be sentenced to 18 years in prison for allegedly murdering his mother and setting fire to their house, resulting in the death of his grandmother, in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture.
The prosecutors told the Fukushima District Court that Jun Onoda committed a vicious crime with a short-sighted motive.
According to the indictment, Onoda stabbed to death his 48-year-old mother, Kazuko, a restaurant worker, at her home in the city at about 2:20 a.m. on Dec. 28.
He then allegedly set fire to the house despite knowing that his grandmother Suiko, 83, and sister, Hanae, 18, were asleep inside.
The sister managed to escape the blaze, which destroyed the two-story wooden house, with minor injuries.