Woman says starved 5-yr-old son `looked like husband`

NARA, Japan, March 4 Kyodo -
A 26-year-old woman who was arrested together with her husband Wednesday for
allegedly starving their 5-year-old son to death has told investigators that
she could not feel any affection for her son because of his resemblance to her
husband, police sources said Thursday.
Mami Yoshida, a part-time worker, has also told the investigators that her
relationship with her husband Hiroshi, 35, a corporate employee, had turned
sour, and the investigators believe the worsening of their relationship might
have led to their abuse of their son, Tomoki.
Mami said she felt affection for the couple's other child, a 3-year-old
daughter, who shows no signs of having been abused.
Hiroshi was quoted as saying that he was aware Tomoki had been getting weak but
he did nothing to protect him.
They are suspected of having failed to give sufficient food or provide
necessary medical care for their son since early January.
On Wednesday, Tomoki was found unconscious by a city government official who
visited the Yoshidas' home after Mami called a child counseling center. The boy
was lying on a futon wearing a diaper and looking extremely skinny, the city
government said.
The official called an ambulance to take Tomoki to a hospital, where he was
pronounced dead. Although the average height of a five-year-old is 110
centimeters, Tomoki was only 85 cm tall and weighed just 6.2 kilograms, a third
of the average weight.
On Thursday, the police conducted an autopsy on his body and also raided the
couple's home in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, in search of evidence.
According to the police, while the couple took their daughter to a daycare
center while they worked, they left Tomoki alone at home and the boy had not
gone to a kindergarten or a daycare center.
The Sakurai municipal government said Tomoki underwent a regular health check
for 10-month-old babies in 2005. But the parents failed to ensure Tomoki had
regular checkups in 2006, when he became 18 months old, and in 2008, when he
turned three and a half year.
In response to the city government's inquiries on those occasions, Mami told
city government officials that she needed rest as she was pregnant and that she
could not take Tomoki to the health checkups because she was busy giving care
to a relative.
==Kyodo