Japanese mass murderer Masumi Hayashi, who shocked...

Japanese mass murderer Masumi Hayashi, who shocked the nation when she killed four people and sickened 63 by poisoning curry served at a local festival in 1998, must be hanged, a court in Wakayama ruled.Hayashi has asserted her innocence throughout the high-profile trial.In accordance with a time-honoured court practice when handing down the death penalty, Judge Ikuo Ogawa at the Wakayama District Court began the proceedings by leaving the reading of a formal adjudication until the end. Since there was no direct evidence connecting the 41-year-old woman to the curry poisoning case, which prosecutors described as one of the most cruel committed in Japan, Ogawa spent seven hours explaining why the court reached the guilty verdict through circumstantial evidence."Three separate tests carried out on the traces of arsenic found at Hayashi's home came to the same conclusion that it matches the arsenic detected in the curry," Ogawa said. "Moreover, the possibility that the curry was laced with arsenic during the 40-minute period the defendant was watching the pots alone is extremely high."Hayashi, a former insurance saleswoman, was easily able to obtain arsenic because of her husband's involvement in a termite extermination business, the court recognized."She was well aware that just a small portion of arsenic was enough to kill people," Ogawa said in concluding that she had intent to kill.Despite the death penalty, both the court and the prosecutors were unable to reveal a clear motive for the horrific crime, apart from concluding that Hayashi had a "peculiar" character and held unreasonable grudges against her neighbours with whom she did not get on well. A 16-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy were among those killed in the July 25, 1998 incident. Hayashi's husband, Kenji, is already serving a six-year term for an insurance fraud scheme he organized with her.