Sibling Doctors Arrested over Murder Cover-Up; One Patient Killed Another in Northern Japan (Update 2)

The Yomiuri Shimbun

11:26 JST, February 14, 2025 (updated at 16:00 JST, Feb. 14)

AOMORI — In connection with the murder of one inpatient by another at a hospital in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, in March 2023, the Aomori prefectural police on Friday arrested two doctors on suspicion of concealing the cause of the victim’s death.

The two arrested doctor are brothers. The older brother, Takashi Ishiyama, 61, was the director of the hospital at the time and the younger brother, Tetsu Ishiyama, 60, was the primary doctor for the murdered patient. The hospital provided the victim’s family with a death certificate stating the cause of death to have been pneumonia. The police are investigating the case on suspicion that the pair played a key role in the concealment of the murder.

The murder took place at the Michinoku Memorial Hospital in the city late at night on March 12, 2023. Seietsu Takahashi, 73, was stabbed in the face many times with a toothbrush handle by a then 59-year-old man who had been hospitalized in the same room due to alcohol addiction and other reasons.

Takahashi then received treatment in a different room, but was confirmed dead at 10:10 a.m. on March 13. The assailant was sentenced to 17 years in prison for murder, and the sentence has been finalized.

According to investigative sources, Ishiyama brothers allegedly conspired to conceal the murder while knowing Takahashi had been killed in the hospital. They reportedly did not report the murder to the prefectural police and concealed the man who had killed Takahashi by providing the decedent’s family with a death certificate containing the false cause of death on March 13, 2023.

Concerning his injuries, the hospital told the family that he had fallen. However, the police learned of the incident because another hospital official who held suspicions about the hospital’s handling of the matter reported it to the police at about 6 p.m. the same day. As a result of a legal autopsy of the body, the cause of death was found to have been injuries to his head and face. In April 2023, the police searched the hospital on suspicion of charges including falsifying a medical certificate in violation of the Penal Code.

Takashi currently serves as the head director of the Kyorinkai medical corporation, which operates hospitals and is headquartered in Meguro Ward, Tokyo.