Prosecutors indicted on Wednesday the parents of a 5-year-old girl over neglect that resulted in her death despite the girl's pleas for them to stop abusing her.

Yudai Funato, the 33-year-old stepfather of the girl, and her 26-year-old mother Yuri allegedly did not give their daughter Yua enough food and assaulted her in their home in Tokyo since late January. Fearing revelation of the abuse, the couple left the girl unattended without taking her to a hospital, leading to her death on March 2, according to the indictment.

(Photo of Yua kept by her greatgrandmother in Kagawa Prefecture)

The couple were arrested June 6 over neglect that led to the girl's death from sepsis caused by pneumonia. Yua weighed only 12 kilograms when she was found dead, compared with the average weight for her age of 20 kg.

The girl had been asking her parents to stop the violence and abusive treatment by writing pleas in a notebook and memos that police found at their home.

"Please forgive me, forgive me," and, "I promise I will never ever do it again," were among the messages written by the preschool-aged girl in hiragana letters in the notebook.


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