The Nagoya District Court has sentenced a man to life in prison for killing a woman in 2011 and causing his girlfriend's death in 2009.
Keiji Hayashi, 44, was convicted Wednesday of strangling restaurant worker Madoka Morioka, 27, before abandoning her body in a lake in Fukui Prefecture, and of inflicting injuries on his girlfriend, Eri Asano, 26, that led to her death at his home in Gifu Prefecture.
Presiding Judge Taro Kageyama said in the ruling that the defendant had shown no respect for either victim but that the death penalty could be spared.