Court rejects death row inmate's retrial request
Saturday, March 24, 2007
TOYAMA — The Toyama District Court on Friday dismissed a request for a retrial filed by a woman convicted of abducting and murdering two women in 1980 in Toyama and Nagano prefectures. In turning down the request of Tomoko Miyazaki, 61, Judge Masato Tesaki said the defendant had failed to present any new evidence and that she merely insisted there was inappropriateness in the courts' handling of evidence in the trial.

Miyazaki lured Yoko Nagaoka, an 18-year-old high school student, into her sports car in front of Toyama Station on Feb 23, 1980. Miyazaki then fed Nagaoka sleeping pills mixed in a soft drink and held her for ransom. Two days later, Miyazaki strangled Nagaoka in the car in the parking lot of a drive-in in Furukawa, Gifu Prefecture, after failing to get the ransom.

On March 5 the same year, Miyazaki kidnapped Yumiko Terasawa, a 20-year-old company employee, near Nagano Station and demanded from her family 30 million yen in ransom. Miyazaki strangled Terasawa in the sports car and dumped her body in the woods near a road in Aoki, Nagano Prefecture, after failing again to get the ransom. (Kyodo News)