A mother who killed her comatose son was shown mercy from the court and was released with no prison sentence. The details and situation of the murder is tragic and pitiable.

The mother’s 40-year-old son attempted to commit suicide on the roof top of his workplace but failed and reduced him to a “vegetable” state. The chances of him regaining his consciousness was close to zero but doctors kept him on the life support system because Japan prohibits euthanasia and the refusal of treatment to patients in a “persistent vegetative state.”

This causes a problem for the family because the Japanese health system does not cover suicide attempts and the cost of keeping the man in the hospital amounts to about $1,000 to $3,500 a day. Yikes, that’s a lot of money. That doesn’t even count for the previous 10 days worth of treatment which totaled around $35,000.

The man’s wife had begged the doctors to stop the treatment and even said that she would “pull the plug” if they were unwilling to. The doctors, however, kept their stance and rejected her plea.

One morning, the wife found a note from her mother-in-law stating, “Hold on, Kyoko. I’m his mother, I bore him into this world, so it’s my responsibility.” The mother went to her son, placed a photo of him on his breast and stabbed him four times in the chest, successfully killing him.

The mother expressed her sorrow:

“The sense of loss I have at my son’s death, the fact that I killed him, it overwhelms me. I’ll be atoning for the rest of my life.”

“There was no way I could let his wife take him off the ventilator. As his mother, I’m responsible. I’ve led a long and happy life, so I resolved that my life is over, and I would do it.”

The man’s wife pleaded at court for the woman saying, “For a mother who loved her son so to have killed him, there can be no greater anguish. Please return her to her husband’s side – he would have wanted that.”

Judges ultimately found her guilty for murdering her son but let her go off easy and suspended her original sentence of 3 years in jail.

Such a sad story. It must have been tough for the lady to kill her own son. I can’t imagine doing such a thing… She must be hurting a lot.

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