The Tokyo District Court sentenced a woman to 14 years in prison Wednesday for killing the 2-year-old daughter of an acquaintance she claimed had snubbed her.
Mitsuko Yamada, 37, of Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, was found guilty of strangling Haruna Wakayama on Nov. 22, 1999, in a public lavatory near a Tokyo kindergarten and burying the body in the backyard of her parents' home in Oigawa, Shizuoka Prefecture.
Presiding Judge Naoto Otani ruled that Yamada killed Wakayama to give vent to her "unilateral" hatred of the girl's mother. Although the judge said the crime was "cruel and unjustifiable," he noted he took into consideration her voluntary surrender to police. Prosecutors had demanded an 18-year prison term.