On December 16, Japan hanged 2 men: Kazuo Sagawa, 48,...

On December 16, Japan hanged 2 men: Kazuo Sagawa, 48, and Teruo Ono, 62. The reports cited unidentified officials. Sagawa murdered a woman and her daughter at the woman's home in Omiya, just north of Tokyo, in 1981, and Ono was convicted of killing a 68-year-old woman in southwestern Japan during a 1977 robbery, the reports said. The Justice Ministry confirmed that 2 men had been executed, but refused to provide their names or detail their crimes. "If we notify the prisoner beforehand," said a spokesman for the Justice Ministry, "the person's emotional state may become disturbed. Therefore we can't notify anyone before the hanging, including the prisoner. After the execution, we inform the family as quickly as possible."