A 36-year-old man was sentenced Thursday to life imprisonment for murdering a 53-year-old woman and fatally injuring a 21-year-old student in 2002.
Seikaku Uehara had been drifting around the country with Emi Takanezawa, 28. He killed Takanezawa's mother, Eiko, in Nagano Prefecture in October 2002 and beat the student to death the following month in the prefecture. The student was not identified.
The Shizuoka District Court's Numazu Branch sentenced Takanezawa to eight years in prison as Uehara's accomplice.
Uehara was saddled with huge debts, and had been drifting since about February 2001.
Presiding Judge Sachiko Takahashi said, "It was a self-centered crime and we can find no grounds for clemency."