The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal of a 55-year-old former hostess convicted of killing a coworker in 1982.
Kazuko Fukuda was arrested in 1997 after nearly 15 years on the run. With the decision by the top court's Second Petty Bench on Tuesday, Fukuda now faces life imprisonment, as set by two earlier lower court rulings.
Arrested before the statute of limitations expired, Fukuda was charged with robbery resulting in death, and prosecutors demanded a life term. Fukuda unsuccessfully tried to have the charge amended to separate counts of murder and robbery in hopes of negotiating a reduced sentence.
In separate rulings in 1999 and 2000, the lower courts found her guilty of strangling a 31-year-old colleague at the coworker's home in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, and making off with cash and furniture worth some 10 million yen on Aug. 19, 1982.
After burying the victim's body on a mountain in Matsuyama, Fukuda underwent plastic surgery at a Tokyo hospital later the same year to alter the appearance of her eyes and nose.
She moved from one place to another, assuming different names until the Fukui Prefectural Police received a tipoff about a woman resembling Fukuda. The police arrested her in the city of Fukui in July 1997. She was then indicted by the Matsuyama District Public Prosecutors Office on Aug. 18, a day before the statute expired.