Osaka prefectural police announced on 20 September the arrest of 48-year-old Masumi Nishino for the attempted murder of her husband and arson of their home and office.  This arrest was made possible only after Nishino’s allegedly intended victim/husband saved her life by pulling her from the very same building she set on fire.

According to police, Nishino’s husband worked at home from a split-off “office” portion of the residence doing graphic design. On the night of 31 August, the couple got into a heated altercation that went on until the next morning. Unable to reconcile, the husband went to sleep in the office side of the home.

However, Nishino who later said, “I wanted to smoke him out,” began using a lighter to set aflame pieces of paper and shoved them into the gaps between the wall to the office side. A few minutes later, she got tired and retired to the residential side of the complex to sleep.  Not too long after that, her husband awoke from the heat of the flames engulfing his room. Quickly he escaped but realized his wife was still inside the house.

Already suffering from burns to his respiratory tract, the husband went back into the home and pulled Nishino from the building.  Both were taken to the hospital where Nishino was released on 3 September following smoke inhalation treatment which her husband is still undergoing but is expected to pull through.

After being questioned about their hospitalization, police pressed charges for arson and attempted murder. Nishino made a statement saying, “I was just trying to annoy him. I had no intention of killing him or even burning down the house. I had no idea this would happen.”

Marriage can be hard sometimes. However, no matter how seemingly out of hand things get, you always have to take that precious moment to think, “Could what I’m doing be construed as a felony in a court of law?”

Source: Sports Hochi via Itai News (Japanese)
Image: Wikipedia – Awesomoman