A 25-year-old construction worker pleaded guilty Monday to murdering two women he became acquainted with via e-mail at his first hearing before the Kyoto District Court.
Hiroaki NishijimaThe indictment said Hiroaki Nishijima planned to rob and then murder Miki Iwabuchi, a 19-year-old student at Kyoto Women's University, and Misako Miyauchi, a 28-year-old office worker.
Nishijima, however, said he did not kill the women to get money.
Nishijima became acquainted with the two women through a friend-finding site on the Internet using a mobile phone, according to the indictment.
At around 1 a.m. April 8, Nishijima allegedly murdered Iwabuchi, a native of Kitami, Hokkaido, in his car in Yamashina Ward, Kyoto, and dumped her body in a river in the town of Ujitawara, Kyoto Prefecture, the indictment said.
Nishijima took about 70,000 yen from Iwabuchi after murdering her, prosecutors said.
They charged that Nishijima killed Iwabuchi because she threatened to alert police that she had been abducted by him. They also said the accused wanted the victim's money to repay his debts.
On May 6, also at around 1 a.m., Nishijima murdered Miyauchi in his car in the town of Keihoku in the same prefecture and took her belongings, according to the indictment. He dumped Miyauchi's body in a river in Ayabe, also in Kyoto Prefecture, the indictment said.
Nishijima killed Miyauchi because she panicked when he told her that he had killed Iwabuchi the previous month, according to the prosecutors.