Man busted over death of girlfriend's infant son

The Mainichi Shimbun
September 29, 2007
Source: http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070929p2a00m0na030000c.html

ICHINOMIYA, Aichi -- A man has been arrested for beating his live-in girlfriend's 2-year-old son to death, police said.

Katsunori Yamakoshi, 37, unemployed, was arrested for inflicting bodily injury resulting in the death of his girlfriend's son, Shinya Koyama.

The suspect admits to the allegations against him.

"He wouldn't warm to me and I hated the rebellious look in his eyes, so I started hitting him a lot to discipline him from about June this year," Yamakoshi told the police.

Police said that Yamakoshi became infuriated by Shinya at about 7 p.m. on Thursday night after he threw garbage around his girlfriend's apartment, so punched him to the face and head about 10 times, causing injuries such as a brain contusion that lead to his death. The victim's mother, 33-year-old Nobue Koyama, had gone out about three hours earlier, leaving Yamakoshi alone with her son.

Koyama said she returned home at about 1:30 a.m. Friday and when she woke at around noon, Shinya was not breathing. Koyama called for an ambulance, but Shinya's heart had already stopped beating. Shinya's cheeks were covered in massive bruises about the size of an adult human's fist and there were signs of internal bleeding in his head. When he was taken to the hospital, officials alerted the police, saying the boy appeared to have been battered. An autopsy will be carried out on Shinya's body to determine the exact cause of his death.

Koyama and Yamakoshi met through an online matchmaking site. They started living together in Kyoto in June, then moved to Ichinomiya the following month.

September 29, 2007