Three death-row inmates were hanged Thursday, in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, the first executions carried out under the new Liberal Democratic Party-led government.
According to the Justice Ministry, the three were Kaoru Kobayashi, 44, who kidnapped and killed a 7-year-old girl; Masahiro Kanagawa, 29, who went on a stabbing spree in Ibaraki Prefecture; and Keiki Kano, 62, who robbed and killed a bar owner.
Kobayashi, a repeat sex offender, was executed in Osaka for the murder of a 7-year-old girl he abducted while she was on her way home from school in Nara Prefecture in November 2004. He molested her before drowning her in his bathtub. After attempting to have sex with the body, he mutilated it by pulling out 10 of the girl's teeth. The newspaper deliveryman also threatened the girl's parents, claiming he would come after the girl's younger sister and emailing a photo of their daughter's corpse.
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