Yui Inoue.Photo: Tempe Police Department/AP/Shutterstock
An Arizona mother is charged with murder after allegedly killing her two children with a meat cleaver. According to authorities, she claims she can’t remember what happened.
On Saturday morning, just after 7:30 a.m., Yui Inoue, 40, drove to a Tempe Police Department substation and told an officer she heard voices telling her to kill her children, ages 9 and 7, the Tempe Police Department says in a release.
Inoue — who primarily speaks Japanese — told police that she woke up around 4:30 a.m. with blood on her hands and arms, and that her two children were dead and bloody near the doorway of the bedroom.
“Inoue did not believe that she had killed the children but said that she could not remember,” the release says, explaining her recollection of the morning.
Inoue alleged that she took a bath “after she ‘woke up’ to the situation.” She then went to the police station where she spoke to an officer.
When authorities arrived at the couple’s Tempe apartment to check on the children, “they observed a large quantity of blood on the floor near a bedroom and items covering the area,” police say.
The two children were dead.
Their bodies were found under a blanket and boxes, “which appeared to have been used to minimally conceal them,” says the release. They suffered from “numerous lacerations, incised wounds and some amputations, consistent with a violent attack and with defensive wounds.”
At 8:11 a.m., just after officers found the children’s bodies, police detained Inoue.
The woman’s husband told police he left the house at 12:30 a.m. — hours before the alleged murders — after they got into a heated argument.
“Inoue had threatened to stab him after they got into an argument about her wanting more money for her upcoming move to Japan,” the release says.
Inoue and her husband had filed for divorce in April and were living in separate rooms in the same apartment.
The children were asleep at the time of the argument and the husband “had no concerns about Inoue harming them at that time” when he left the apartment to sleep in his vehicle, the release says.
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Inoue is being held in the Tempe City Jail. She has not entered a plea. It is unclear whether she has retained an attorney who can speak on her behalf.
The suspect appeared in court Monday, denying the charges presented.
“I did not kill anybody,” Inoue said through an interpreter before being told to remain silent until speaking with an attorney, according to theAssociated Press.
In the meantime, the children’s father and family, and the community are grappling with their loss.
Counselors will be available for students, parents and personnel at the Kyrene del Cielo Elementary School where the brother and sister were students.
“Moments like this remind us that life is precious and too often fleeting,” superintendent Laura Toenjes said in a statement. “Please hold your children and loved ones close.”
Tempe Police Department’s peer support team is working with officers who “experienced emotional trauma due to observing the tragic scene and the trauma done to the young children,” ABC 15 Arizona reports.
source: people.com
