Hiroshi Maeue KYODO PHOTO

Hiroshi Maeue, 38, pleaded guilty to the three murders during a hearing in December at the Osaka District Court, saying he is ready to be sentenced to death.

According to the indictment, Maeue invited a 14-year-old junior high school student in Kobe for a joint suicide, and then suffocated the student and dumped his body at a mountain in Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, in May 2005.

Maeue also killed two other people from Osaka -- a 25-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man -- between February and June 2005 in a similar way, the indictment says.

The Japan Times Weekly: Feb. 24, 2007
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