Disabled woman pushed by husband into sea because he 'grew tired of taking care of her'

A Japanese man was reported to have killed his disabled wife after he pushed her into the sea because he had grown "tired of taking care of her."

According to reports gathered by The Independent, law enforcement officers situated in Oiso, Kanagawa prefecture in Japan said that the 81-year-old husband, identified to be Hiroshi Fujiwara, pled guilty and confessed to the crime he did against his own wife.

Fujiwara told officers that he brought his 79-year-old wife Teruko, who was bound to a wheelchair, to a pier in Oiso on Nov. 3 and pushed her into the waters below. This happened at around 5:30 in the afternoon.

Afterward, he admitted the act to his son, who then called the local police to inform them about what he did.

“My dad says he pushed mom into the sea”, he told the officers, Japan Times reported.

A concerned citizen also informed the police that they saw a body floating in the waters at around 7:00 p.m. that same day. Despite being rushed to the hospital after emergency services took her out of the sea, Teruko was declared dead.

Once he was brought into custody for suspicion of murder, Fujiwara said that he and his disabled wife were currently living by themselves and that he had been tending to her needs for over 40 years.

An article by South China Morning Post explored the growing elder abuse in Japan. According to the report, a survey released by the country’s health and welfare ministry last year found that there were 17,281 incidents of elderly people being physically assaulted by family members in 2020, which led to 25 deaths.