Wife charged with arson, murder
A 77-year-old San Jose woman is facing murder and arson charges in connection with a blaze at the home she shared with her husband, who died after suffering severe smoke inhalation, authorities said Wednesday.
Santa Clara County prosecutors have charged Rebecca Makino — who was described by her son in a police investigative report as possibly having “undiagnosed dementia” — with one count of murder and one count of arson causing great bodily injury, according to charging documents provided by the district attorney’s office.
San Jose firefighters responded at 3:47 a.m. Saturday to a residential fire in the 5900 block of Amapola Drive in San Jose. Makino’s husband — identified in charging documents as Hiroshi Makino — was rescued from an upstairs bedroom by firefighters. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition with smoke inhalation and died Tuesday, San Jose police said.
Arriving officers saw Makino walking away from the home, the police statement said. She told a fire official that “someone was after her and she indicated that she did not know where her husband was,” according to the police report.
She allegedly admitted to setting the house on fire with a lighter, the report said. Police said video surveillance shows her “walking in and out of her residence” around the time the fire started.
Makino’s public defender Lara Wallman on Thursday reiterated that Makino’s “mental health has been deteriorating for several years.” The family “had been working on getting her conserved,” Wallman said.
Wallman said that Makino told authorities that “she believed somebody had killed her and they wanted to take her house.”
“She also did not know where her husband was at the time of the fire and believed he was not home,” Wallman said.
On Thursday, Wallman said that the court appointed a neuropsychologist to evaluate and diagnose Makino, adding that public defenders’ officials and Makino’s son are working “on a release plan which would include placement into a mental health facility.”
San Jose Fire Department arson investigators “deemed the fire was started intentionally.”