A Japanese court sentenced to death Yoshida, a 45-year-old...

A Japanese court sentenced to death Yoshida, a 45-year-old former nurse, for masterminding a plot with fellow nurses to murder their husbands for insurance money.According to the Fukuoka District Court, Yoshida convinced her partners, Miyuki Tsutsumi, a 44-year-old clinical test co-ordinator and Kazuko Ikegami, 43, to sedate Ikegami's husband with sleeping pills in January 1998 and kill him by injecting air into his veins.
Yoshida also plotted the drugging of the husband of former nurse Hitomi Ishii, 46, and then intravenously injecting a large amount of whiskey into him in March 1999, causing his death.
It was alleged they collected a total of Y67.5 million yen ($A855,893) in insurance money, the court said.
"The accused abused her knowledge as a nurse and fully planned these crimes," Judge Toshiyuki Tani said. "She proposed each crime and fooled the others into joining her so her criminal responsibility is very grave."