<figure id="attachment_417304" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-417304" style="width: 1695px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="d68e6073"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/03/44421f2d6a2ad35593033bb93b1d6864.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-417304" class="wp-caption-text">Defendant Watanabe arrested and sent to prison in &#8217;23</figcaption></figure>
<h2> Mother-in-law kept demanding money from her&#8230;</h2>
<p> Michiko Watanabe, 55, was convicted of murdering her mother-in-law, who lived with her in Saitama City, and dumping the body under the floor of her house in April 2011.</p>
<p> However, Watanabe is dissatisfied with the sentence and has decided to appeal to a higher court. Behind the decision, there was a &#8220;bad relationship&#8221; between Watanabe and his mother-in-law.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Whenever I asked my mother for money, she would make up a false script and tell me to become an actress. If things didn&#8217;t go well, she made me call my parents&#8217; house as many times as I could until I got the money, saying, &#8216;It&#8217;s your fault for the way you said that. I didn&#8217;t like it, but I was too afraid to tell her that I wanted to quit.</span></p>
<p> On January 31, the third day of the trial, the defendant continued to be questioned.</p>
<p> During the questioning, the judge asked the defendant <span class="strongInContent">how she felt when she asked her own mother for money</span>.</p>
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<p> Since around &#8217;14, defendant Watanabe had been living in a maisonette-style apartment in Saitama City with her husband, son, mother-in-law, and two sisters-in-law. They lived mainly on her husband&#8217;s income, and he managed the household finances. The younger sister put 30,000 yen a month into the family budget, but the mother-in-law did not put any money into the family budget even when her pension was paid.</p>
<p> Then, as ordered by her mother-in-law, Watanabe made false phone calls to her own mother, <span class="strongInContent">saying that she had spent the money she had accumulated and that she had stalked her and had to pay compensation</span>, and over a period of three years from August &#8217;18 to June &#8217;21, she sent a total of approximately 7.7 million yen to her own mother on 20 occasions. He had his own mother remit a total of approximately 770,000 yen over a period of about three years, from August 2006 to June 2009. Almost all of the money was given to his mother-in-law.</p>
<p> In August 2007, she ran away from home to a man in Iwate whom she had met on a game site because she felt guilty about having lied to her mother and was unable to disobey her mother-in-law&#8217;s orders. However, he was violently attacked there as well, and returned home after about a month. <span class="strongInContent">When</span> asked by her defense attorney, <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;How did you feel when you came home after running away from home?</span> Watanabe answered, &#8220;When I came back from running away from home, how did I feel?</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I felt that my actions were wrong, that I wanted to go home, and that I wanted to see my husband and son. My husband did not blame me or ask me why I ran away from home.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> However, I did sign a written pledge prepared by my husband that said, &#8216;I admit to being unfaithful and will pay 1.5 million. There was no infidelity, but I didn&#8217;t tell her because I thought she wouldn&#8217;t believe me anyway. （My older sister told me not to let him cross the threshold, and my younger sister simply ignored my apologies.</span></p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" They threw away my father&#39;s picture."></div>
<h2>Violence&#8221; from mother-in-law</h2>
<figure id="attachment_417308" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-417308" style="width: 664px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="a86cfa52"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/03/62b13d92033ab3a20495c51df89fe40c.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-417308" class="wp-caption-text"> Exterior view of the apartment where the incident took place</figcaption></figure>
<p> At that time, the 1.5 million yen she paid to her husband as alimony was also paid out by her own mother.</p>
<p> After returning home, <span class="strongInContent">Watanabe&#8217;s</span> mental condition worsened <span class="strongInContent">: &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t get up in the morning and couldn&#8217;t do my housework well.</span> She had been visiting a psychosomatic medicine clinic, but stopped seeing the doctor on February 4, 2008.</p>
<p> When asked by the defense attorney why, he <span class="strongInContent">replied, &#8220;My mother-in-law told me, &#8216;If people find out that you go to the psychiatrist, my daughter won&#8217;t be able to marry a man.</span> My <span class="strongInContent">mother-in-law is a person who cares about public opinion,&#8221;</span> he replied.</p>
<p> After his mother passed away in August 2009, Watanabe began working at a day service in December of the same year.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The mother-in-law managed the cash card and bankbook of the account to which her wages were deposited,&#8221; said Watanabe.</span></p>
<p> However, in February of the following year, Watanabe resigned. After she quit her job, her mother-in-law&#8217;s behavior began to change. She began to harass Watanabe in various ways. <span class="strongInContent">When asked by the defense attorney, &#8220;What kind of harassment, for example?</span> Watanabe testified, &#8220;She came into my room out of the blue and started harassing me with my bag.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He suddenly came into my room and threw the contents of my bag on the floor and verbally abused me, calling me a &#8220;scumbag.</span></p>
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<p> The hardest thing of all was that <span class="strongInContent">he threw away a picture of his father that he cherished</span>,&#8221; Watanabe said in a choked voice.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> My father was a workaholic and rarely smiled, but there was a picture of him with a very nice smile, and I treasured it. When I found it discarded in a trash can upstairs, I was really shocked. &#8230;&#8230;&#8221;</span></p>
<p> The defense attorney explained that <span class="strongInContent">the mother-in-law must have been frustrated because the defendant, who earns only a few tens of thousands of yen a month, is not a money-grubber like she has been in the past</span>. This unreasonable &#8220;harassing behavior&#8221; was found to be true during the trial.</p>
<p> In March 2011, the mother-in-law began to suspect that Watanabe had 1.5 million dollars hidden away, and persistently urged her to hand it over.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Whenever we were alone, she would ask me to give her 1.5 million every day. She even made me write a note saying, &#8216;I have only coins. I was also beaten with fists, had a kitchen knife held to my nose, and had kitchen bleach poured over my eyes.</span></p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" I snapped in my mind..."></div>
<h2>Tearful &#8220;confession</h2>
<p> On April 22, 2011, <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;I felt a haze in front of my eyes, and I heard a cracking sound in my heart.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent">When the judge asked, &#8220;When you say you felt a snap in your heart, do you mean that it was hard for you to accept the demand for money?</span> When the judge asked, Watanabe nodded his head and began to speak tearfully.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I myself was at the end of my rope.&#8221; When I called my mother (my own mother) in July of 2009, it was just before she was hospitalized, and I didn&#8217;t even know she was going to be hospitalized, and she cried on the phone. I was calling her on my own business at the time, but for the first time I made her cry and I didn&#8217;t know what I was saying. That was the last conversation we had. When I spoke to her before that, she told me, &#8216;Your phone calls are always about money.'&#8221;</span></p>
<p> The judge <span class="strongInContent">asked, &#8220;Did you resent your mother-in-law for making your own mother cry?&#8221;</span> He continued his question,</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> &#8216;That&#8217;s just &#8230;&#8230;.&#8217;</span></p>
<p> He did not answer clearly, and his words were muddled.</p>
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<p> At the end of the interrogation, Judge Kenichi Emi asked Watanabe, &#8220;Did the victim (mother-in-law) tell you that she was a victim of the crime?</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The victim&#8217;s (mother-in-law) had been making all kinds of sarcastic comments and demands for money, but until then you had managed to get by by saying, &#8220;I don&#8217;t have any money. But at that time, he snapped and killed her. How do you look back on the fact that you lost your patience and acted?</span></p>
<p> Although we could not see Watanabe&#8217;s expression from the audience, he seemed to be thinking about his answer as he stared intently into the microphone. However, time passed without a word, and the final bell rang at 17:00.</p>
<p> Judge Emi closed the session <span class="strongInContent">by saying, &#8220;I guess that was a little tough question.</span> Perhaps he had run out of energy, <span class="strongInContent">but</span> he was unable to get up from the witness stand and was handcuffed on the spot.</p>
<p> In the second part of the article, &#8220;[Hiding the body and leading an unchanged life&#8230;] &#8216;Absolute obedience&#8217; that drove a housewife in her 50s to murder her mother-in-law and dump her body under the floor,&#8221; we will discuss Watanabe&#8217;s &#8220;surprising behavior&#8221; after the verdict was handed down.</p>
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<p> In the second part of the article, <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/417267">&#8220;[Concealing the body and leading an unchanged life&#8230;] &#8216;Absolute obedience&#8217; that drove a housewife in her 50s to murder her mother-in-law and dump her body under the floor.</a></p>
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 Nakahira

 Shinji Hasuo

 Michiko Watanabe, 55, was convicted of murdering her mother-in-law, who lived with her in Saitama City, and dumping her body under the floor of her house in April 2011. She was sentenced to seven years in prison, but has decided to appeal.

A housewife in her 50s who was sentenced to seven years in prison shed tears at her trial.

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