OSAKA — Masumi Hayashi must hang for murdering four people and injuring 63 others with arsenic-laced curry at a Wakayama summer festival seven years ago, the Osaka High Court ruled Tuesday, upholding a lower court verdict.
The Wakayama District Court in December 2002 sentenced Hayashi, 43, an ex-insurance saleswoman, to death after convicting her of killing the four, including two children, injuring the 63, and attempting to fatally poison her husband, Kenji, and another acquaintance in connection with separate cases of insurance fraud.
Hayashi had pleaded not guilty to putting arsenic into the curry pots during a summer festival in her neighborhood on July 25, 1998.