Genzo Kurita (栗田 源蔵) was a Japanese serial killer who murdered eight people.

Murders

Kurita murdered two girlfriends in February 1948. On August 8, 1951, he raped and murdered a 24-year-old woman beside her baby. He then had sex with her corpse. On October 11, 1951, he raped and murdered a 29-year-old woman. He threw her three children from a cliff called Osen Korogashi. One survived. Kurita killed a 63-year-old woman and her 24-year-old niece on January 13, 1952. Afterward, he had sex with the niece's dead body. At the crime scene, the police found his fingerprints.

Arrest, trial, and execution

Kurita was arrested on January 16, 1952. On August 12, 1952, the district court in Chiba sentenced him to death for the last two murders. The district court in Utsunomiya sentenced him to death for six others on December 21, 1953. He appealed the sentences, but because of mental instability he retracted his appeals on October 21, 1954. He was considered to be neurotic and a danger to himself, committing self-harm but also screaming that he did not want to die. He was executed on October 14, 1959.

Aftermath

On May 10, 1956, a pro-death penalty prosecutor in Supreme Public Prosecutors Office introduced Kurita into a debate about capital punishment in the Diet.