<figure id="attachment_224772" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 887px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-224772"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="8048ef1c"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/01/6c35577c47027cea36f1085509d4b33d.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-224772" class="wp-caption-text">Defendant Katsuhito Katsuda was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a third-grade girl (Photo: Kyodo News at the time of the 2018 sentencing)</figcaption></figure>
On January 6, the Okayama District Court held a sentencing hearing for Katsuya Katsuya, 43, who was accused of murder and indecent assault for the murder of a third-grade girl, A., then 9, in Tsuyama City, Okayama Prefecture, where Judge Akira Kuranari sentenced him to life imprisonment. There was no evidence at the crime scene to link the defendant to the incident, such as a DNA type, and the defendant denied the allegations, and had contested his innocence. The defense is appealing the case on the same day.
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The case happened 17 years ago in September 2004, but had been unsolved for a long time. Katsuta, who was serving time in Osaka Prison for another attempted murder, was arrested as a suspect in this case in May 2018. This was about 14 years later.
The first hearing of the jury trial was held on October 6, 2021. At his arraignment, Katsuta said, &#8220;I definitely did not do anything like that. I did not go to the crime scene or to Tsuyama City on the day of the incident,&#8221; he denied.
However, he was not denying it from the beginning. His statements continued to change before and after his arrest, eventually leading to his &#8220;complete denial. The issue in the jury trial was whether Katsuta was the culprit or not, and whether his confession during the investigation phase was credible.
The Okayama District Court ruled that the crime was committed by Katsuta and that his confession during the investigation was credible. The reason for this was explained in the article I published earlier <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/224767">, &#8220;Sexual arousal through self-injury: &#8220;Dangerous sexual habits&#8221; of the defendant in the Tsuyama girl&#8217;s murder case</a>.
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According to the prosecutor&#8217;s opening statement at the first trial, after the incident occurred, the Okayama Prefectural Police began investigating the case as a murder case, but for many years they had not been able to identify the suspect. In order to expand the investigation outside of the prefecture, the police asked for cooperation from the Hyogo Prefectural Police, and in 2017, the existence of Katsuta emerged as &#8220;someone who repeatedly committed crimes against girls.
At the time, Katsuta was serving time in Osaka Prison, where he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the attempted murder of a girl in 2015. In 2000, he was sentenced to probation for indecent assault and indecent assault on several girls around the age of 10, including punching them in the abdomen and touching their private parts.
In 2010, he was sentenced to four years in prison for assault and battery, including punching a girl in the abdomen and poking her with a screwdriver. It is because of this past that the defendant Katsuta has attracted attention as someone who repeatedly commits crimes against girls.
<h3>I imagined a girl in a white blouse suffering&#8230;</h3>
The investigators asked Katsuta, who was serving a sentence in Osaka Prison, and began interviewing him. In May 2018, the Okayama Prefectural Police arrested Katsuta as a suspect in the murder of Ms. A. In May 2018, the Okayama Prefectural Police arrested Katsuta as a suspect in the murder of Ms. A. During an interrogation on June 2 of the same year, he stated, &#8220;I stabbed Ms. A to death with a knife. However, six days later, he changed his statement, saying that it was &#8220;all bullshit that I thought up on my own.
However, even after that, he did not consistently deny it and explained to the doctor that he admitted to killing Ms. A in the psychiatric evaluation conducted from the same month to October.
This doctor appeared as a witness at the trial on November 17, 2021, at the end of the hearing, and revealed the shocking things that Katsuta had said during the psychiatric evaluation.
This is the second time he has conducted a psychiatric evaluation, as he also conducted one for the attempted murder of the defendant in 2015. This is the second time the doctor has conducted a psychiatric evaluation.
At the time, the defendant told me that her lawyer had advised her to keep silent. The defendant told me at the time that his defense counsel had advised him to keep silent. It was his right to remain silent, and I would explain this to him at the beginning of the evaluation. On the other hand, I also explain that I want the psychiatric evaluation to be as honest as possible and to conduct a correct evaluation. Then, of course, I told her that she should make her own decision. Then the defendant said, &#8216;My lawyer told me to keep quiet, but I really want to talk.
At the time of the evaluation in 2015, the defendant&#8217;s IQ was 76, and at that time, &#8220;it was not clear that he was mentally retarded. At the time of the latest evaluation, the defendant&#8217;s IQ was 76. At the time of the current evaluation, the defendant&#8217;s IQ was 70. At the time of the latest evaluation, the defendant&#8217;s IQ was 70, which is below the standard of 69 for intellectual disability. The doctor also stated that the defendant did not have any mental disorder that would affect his legal judgment at the time of the incident, nor does he now, and that his personality traits could explain the entire incident.
The doctor testified that the defendant&#8217;s &#8220;personality tendencies&#8221; included sexual sadism and pedophilia.
 The doctor testified that the defendant&#8217;s &#8220;personality tendencies&#8221; included sexual sadism and pedophilia. &#8220;For some time, the defendant has had a strong obsession with bishojo anime. The defendant himself said that he liked anime, and in fact he was very familiar with it. He said he had about 8,000 images of anime characters stored in his cell phone. He also owned manga (comic books), which he demanded from his mother as a gift when he was in prison in Osaka.
The defendant, who indulged in bisexual anime, had a pattern of fantasies that excited him sexually. The defendant, who indulged in beautiful girls&#8217; anime, had a pattern of fantasies that excited her sexually, and that was &#8220;harming young girls.
 She said, &#8220;From the time I entered a vocational school, I imagined a girl in a white blouse suffering, and I would touch her breasts or pubic area, stab her, or insert myself into her. In fact, he said so himself at the time of the evaluation, and he made the same statement at the time of the previous evaluation.
 What the previous convictions have in common is that they target young people, that they are repeated in order to satisfy their own sexual desires, and that they are sexually aroused and masturbate by inflicting severe pain on the victims, such as punching them in the stomach.
The defendant also carried out these &#8220;fantasies&#8221; using characters from bishojo anime.
In addition, the defendant revealed an impressive episode of his first day of evaluation.
 He said, &#8220;He came to the hospital where I was working at the time with a police officer, and he said, &#8216;I found a cute girl on the way to the hospital. I wanted to hit her or stab her.
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<figure id="attachment_224776" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1024px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-224776"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="9cf838cc"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/01/86813c36cec11442311dbaa09a768e6a.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-224776" class="wp-caption-text">(Representative photo by Kyodo News, Okayama District Court, November 24, 2011)</figcaption></figure>
<h3>&#8216;Suck it up&#8217; to the victims</h3>
At the time of the testimony, Katsuta had already denied the crime, but he admitted it to the doctor and explained what he did that day.
 I strangled the girl to see her suffer,&#8221; he said. I was trying to knock her out and play a trick on her. The girl collapsed, but I didn&#8217;t want to make a scene, so I stabbed her four times in the chest and stomach. I strangled her for two reasons: to see her suffer and to play a prank on her.&#8221;
Katsuta, who says he is sexually aroused by watching young girls suffer &#8230;&#8230;, injured girls and women with his fists in 2000, with a screwdriver in 2010, and with a knife in 2015. According to the doctor, &#8220;Repeatedly committing assaults on girls and girls leads them to seek higher pleasure by relieving their sexual desires. As a result, he became more brutal in his actions.
However, if Katsuta committed the Tsuyama incident in 2004, the weapon he used was a knife, but in 2010, it was a screwdriver, which means that he has changed to a weaker act. The defense attorney pointed out that he may not have escalated, however, this turned out to be a bushwhack.
Defense attorney: &#8220;After the stabbing incident with the knife, with the screwdriver, then it seems like a regression.&#8221;
 The doctor said, &#8220;The defendant chooses to use a graduated method on his subjects. What kind of girl do you want to hit? What kind of girl do you want to stab?
 Instead of talking about the incident, he asks, &#8216;What kind of girl would you stab? She answered, &#8220;I thought about stabbing her because of the attempted murder in 2015 and this Tsuyama incident.
 When I asked why, the defendant said, &#8216;Because she was the prettiest girl I&#8217;ve ever met. It is true that there is an aspect of escalation in the course of repeated crimes, but he also said that he has a preference.
In other words, the more he likes a girl, the more he feels the urge to hurt her, and the more he fantasizes and does it, the more sexually aroused he gets.
As for the &#8220;destruction of evidence&#8221; after committing the crime, the defendant said in his expert opinion
The next day, I went to a tetrapod in the ocean and burned my clothes with oil. The next day, I dumped the murder weapon from a tetrapod in the ocean.
He told the doctor. At the trial, the defendant claimed that he confessed to the crime after getting information from &#8220;TV no Chikara&#8221; (TV Asahi), a crime information program aired at the time, and newspapers, but only a criminal could have known what happened after the crime.
The doctor also recalled that Katsuta &#8220;had no remorse or anything like that. When asked how he felt about his victims, he replied, &#8220;I&#8217;ve never felt sorry for any of my victims. I never felt sorry for any of my victims.
When asked by the doctor at the interview, &#8220;What does committing a crime mean to you?
 He said, &#8220;It&#8217;s like a walk, something to kill time.
The defendant, who claimed that his confession was a &#8220;fictional story,&#8221; may say that his statement in the psychiatric evaluation was also a fictional story at the appeal hearing to be held soon. Was the Tsuyama incident just a way to kill time in his life, or is there really another culprit? We will continue our coverage of the appeal trial.

 Observer. Freelance writer. She is a freelance writer, and has published several books, including "Tsukebi no mura: gossip killed five people? (Shobunsha), "Runaway Old Man, Crime Theater" (Yosen-sha Shinsho), "Kanae Kijima: The Secret of Dangerous Love" (Tokuma Shoten), "Kanae Kijima Gekijo" (Takarajima-sha), and in the past, "Kasumikko Club: Daughters' Court Hearings" (Shinchosha).

 Yuki Takahashi

 Seventeen years ago, defendant Katsuhito Katsuda was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a then nine-year-old girl in Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture. The doctor who conducted the psychiatric evaluation appeared as a witness at the end of the trial last November, and revealed the shocking things the defendant had said.

 The identity of Katsuya Katsuya, the defendant in the murder of a nine-year-old girl in Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture, 17 years ago in September 2004.

The defendant in the murder of a 9-year-old girl in Tsuyama City, Okayama Prefecture, 17 years ago, told a psychiatrist that crime is a way to kill time.

The defendant in the murder of a 9-year-old girl in Tsuyama City, Okayama Prefecture, 17 years ago, told a psychiatrist that crime is a way to kill time.

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