Father demands murder charge for suicide jumper who crushed 23-year-old daughter to death

AICHI (TR) – The father of a 23-year-old woman who was crushed to death in July when a suicidal man plunged from an 11th-floor balcony has launched a petition demanding the jumper face murder charges, revealing the suspect admitted he “didn’t care” if he killed anyone, reports TV Asahi (Oct. 11).

Tomoki Inaba, a restaurant worker, was walking along a sidewalk with a friend in a bustling downtown district of Nagoya when the 29-year-old man landed directly on top of her. Experts estimate the force of the collision was between one and three tons. Tomoki died almost instantly.

The jumper initially fell into a coma but later recovered. He was arrested on suspicion of gross negligence resulting in death and is currently undergoing psychiatric evaluation to determine his criminal culpability.

“Willfull negligence”

However, the victim’s father, Kenji Inaba, refuses to accept his daughter’s death as a mere accident. Seeking answers, Kenji has visited the suspect three times in detention, where he says the man showed a chilling disregard for human life.

“He told me, ‘I’m sorry for what happened to your precious daughter,’ but honestly, anyone could say that,” Kenji said. “I asked him, ‘You jumped thinking you didn’t care if there were people below, or if they lived or died, right?’ And he replied, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ He jumped without caring if he took someone with him. I absolutely cannot accept this being brushed off as an accident.”

Kenji is pushing for prosecutors to upgrade the charge to murder based on “willful negligence” ( mihitsu no koi ). He argues the suspect knew the risks of jumping into a highly trafficked area. Kenji has personally staked out the scene of the tragedy, noting that even at 1:00 a.m. — the time of the incident — nearly 300 pedestrians passed through the area in under two hours.

An online petition demanding the harsher penalty, launched last month, has already garnered over 45,000 signatures.

Legal experts, however, warn of high hurdles. Lawyer Yasuo Sawai noted that proving murderous intent in a suicide jump is highly complex. “When jumping from the 11th floor, it is entirely unpredictable whether you will actually hit a pedestrian below,” Sawai explained. “Objectively proving this constitutes an act of murder is not easy.”

For Kenji, the fight is about ensuring the senseless tragedy isn’t swept under the rug. The day before she was killed, Tomoki had messaged her father on the Line app to arrange dinner — what would have been their first meal together in nine months.

“A third party is dead. I don’t want this treated as just an accident,” Kenji said. “If the current law cannot change that, then I want to see legal reforms that stand by the victims and their grieving families.”

Published in Crime , Nagoya and News

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爱知县（TR）——据朝日电视台（10月11日）报道，一名23岁女子于7月被一名从11楼阳台跳下的自杀男子压死，其父亲发起请愿，要求对跳楼者提起谋杀指控，并透露嫌疑人承认他“不在乎”是否杀人。

餐厅员工稻叶智树（Tomoki Inaba）和朋友在名古屋繁华的市中心人行道上行走时，一名29岁的男子突然从天而降，直接压在了她身上。专家估计，撞击力在一吨到三吨之间。智树几乎当场死亡。

跳楼者最初陷入昏迷，但后来苏醒过来。他因涉嫌过失致人死亡而被捕，目前正在接受精神鉴定，以确定其是否构成刑事犯罪。

“故意疏忽”

然而，受害者的父亲稻叶健二并不接受女儿的死仅仅是一场意外。为了寻求真相，健二曾三次探望被拘留的嫌疑人，他表示，嫌疑人表现出了令人不寒而栗的漠视生命的态度。

“他跟我说，‘我很抱歉你宝贝女儿的遭遇’，但说实话，谁都会这么说，”健二说。“我问他，‘你跳下去的时候根本不在乎下面有没有人，也不在乎他们的死活，对吧？’他回答说，‘没错。’他跳下去的时候根本不在乎会不会连累别人。我绝对不能接受这件事被轻描淡写地归咎于意外。”

健二力促检方以“故意过失”（mihitsu no koi）为由，将指控升级为谋杀。他认为嫌疑人明知跳入人流密集区域的风险。健二亲自勘察了事发地点，并指出即使在凌晨1点——事发时间——不到两小时内也有近300名行人经过该区域。

上个月发起的一项要求加重处罚的网上请愿活动已经获得了超过 45,000 个签名。

然而，法律专家警告说，这其中困难重重。律师泽井康夫指出，证明跳楼自杀者具有杀人意图非常复杂。“从11楼跳下，是否真的会撞到下面的行人完全无法预料，”泽井解释说，“客观地证明这构成谋杀并非易事。”

对健二来说，这场斗争是为了确保这场毫无意义的悲剧不会被掩盖。就在遇害的前一天，友树通过Line应用给父亲发信息，约好一起吃晚饭——这将是他们九个月以来的第一次共进晚餐。

“第三方人员死亡。我不希望这仅仅被视为一起意外事故，”健二说道。“如果现行法律无法改变这一点，那么我希望看到法律改革能够真正站在受害者及其悲痛的家属一边。”

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