Japan Sentences First Teenager To Death In Shocking Murder Case

21-Year-Old Yuki Endo was sentenced to death this year after a murder-arson case took place in 2021, making him approximately 18 or 19 years old at the time of the crime.

This marks the first time someone who is a teenager (at the time of the crime) has been given the death penalty after the age of adulthood was lowered from 20 to 18 years old in 2022.

He received the death penalty for his crime that took place in October 2021. After a girl he went to school with denied his romantic advances, he went to her house and stabbed her parents to death, hit her younger sister with a machete, and set the house on fire.

While defense attorneys tried to plead insanity, the ruling from Kofu City District Court ultimately determined that Endo was responsible for his actions and had little chance of rehabilitation, resulting in the ruling of the death penalty. The judge determined that he had “the full ability to take responsibility for the crime” and that “his age is not a reason to avoid the death penalty.”

The post recently trended on a Korean forum where netizens shared their thoughts.

• “It’s great that they’re even carrying out the execution.”
• “Please execute the death penalty.”
• “That’s bold.”
• “I’m envious. Japan is definitely a developed country.”
• “Korea and Japan both follow the same continental legal system. We can do it too, but we’re not doing it, right? Even if it’s not the death penalty, we could at least increase the sentences, right? They’re doing it, and they follow the same legal system as us.”
• “If this were our country, at best, the sentence would be 7 years. I’m envious.”
• “If you killed someone, shouldn’t you be killed too?”
• “That’s the right way to do it.”
• “Wow…”
• “I’m jealous of that one thing.”