Yui Inoue: Woman convicted of murdering her two children with meat cleaver in revenge against ex-husband
She claimed to hear voices when she talked to police, but prosecutors allege she was enraged her estranged husband wasn't giving her money he promised her
Content warning: Some graphic descriptions of the crime scene and child murders. Please read at your own discretion.
When police arrived at Yui Inoue’s apartment on May 15, 2021 in Tempe, Arizona following a domestic dispute with her estranged husband, officers saw no reason to believe anything other than a typical divorce dispute had occurred. Yui remained at home with her two kids while her husband left to get away from the argument.
The children were, according to Tempe Police spokesman Sgt. Steven Carbajal, sleeping soundly in their beds.
“It didn’t seem like there was an immediate threat to the children,” he said in a statement. “Parents, couples, argue and they have disagreements, and they have issues that come up.”
But later that night, the same woman showed up at the Tempe police station and flagged down officers, claiming she heard voices telling her to kill her children, according to Fox 10.
When officers responded to her apartment once more, the scene they walked into would traumatize and mortify. The same 9-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy who had been peacefully asleep in their beds mere hours before were now dead with what Carbajal called “obvious signs of trauma.”
Fox 10 lists lacerations, cuts, and amputations “consistent with a violent attack and defensive wounds” as the injuries seen on the children. Carbajal stated that the officers struggled with the scene.
“Very traumatic for our officers to walk into. We’re trained to see these things,” he said. “There is something elevated about that when it’s a 9-year-old and a 7-year-old. This should have never happened.”
Police arrested Yui Inoue, who was 40 at the time, and charged her with two counts of first degree murder. Police say she had lacerations and blood on her body, and they claim to have found a meat cleaver with a 6-inch blade inside of a bag of bloodied clothes in her car. Investigators believe this to be the murder weapon.
Tsubasa, the father of the children, was still out of the house at the time the bodies were discovered, Fox 10 reports. Police reached out to him, discovering that he had left the house at about midnight after he and Yui argued about money he had promised to pay her over the divorce, since she planned to move to Japan. He claimed she had threatened to stab him if he didn’t give her the money. The couple had filed for divorce but remained living in separate rooms in the apartment.
In a statement, police said the husband had no reason to believe the children were in any danger with their mother. He had been sleeping in his car in a bank parking lot until morning and wasn’t home at the time of the childrens’ murders.
Yui told police she had awoken at 4:30 a.m. with blood on her hands and arms, and that her children were dead near the doorway of her bedroom. She claimed to not remember what happened, but admitted she took a bath before going to the police station.
Carbajal confirmed that the officers who originally responded to the domestic dispute were not the same ones who were dispatched to the murder scene, Fox 10 confirms.
“A lot of the officers on that call have children, and even the ones that don’t, we see a lot of tragedy over the course of our career. But you can’t prepare yourself for something like that,” he said. “The aftermath is really one of the hardest things to deal with.”
In another statement, the Arizona Department of Child Safety Statement (DCS) confirmed that they had investigated a previous incident on March 2, 2021. Yui allegedly had taken Kai, her son, and that there whereabouts were unknown. Yui was taken to psychiatric hospital, while Kai was returned to his father.
The DCS adds that there was no evidence of the children being neglected or abused, and the children told them they felt safe with their parents. The investigation remained ongoing at the time of the murders.
A DCS Fatality Summary says the last point of contact between them and the family was on March 4, 2021.
The Trial
It would take four years for Yui to face trial for the murders of her two kids. She had pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder charges, 12 News reports.
In opening statements, prosecutors accused her of murdering the children as revenge against their father for the divorce, “motivated by anger.”
The argument that night began when Yui demanded her husband give her the money he promised to pay her as part of their separation. He left the apartment. Tempe police were called in, but found no reason to be concerned about anyone’s safety.
When other officers responded to Yui’s appearance at the station later, however, they found the children dead and buried beneath boxes, prosecutors said.
The prosecution said the injuries the children sustained were “too many to count,” with lacerations on their heads and necks.
While questions rose about Yui’s mental health at the time of the murders, a judge ruled that it couldn’t be brought up during the trial.
Her defense attorney told the jury during opening statements that there are two sides to every story, and they should keep an open mind during the trial as witnesses testified and evidence was presented.
Prosecutors claim that when Yui went to the police station, she drove with the bloodied clothes and meat cleaver in the car, Local 12 reports. Despite speaking mostly Japanese, she confessed that she had killed her kids, then later claimed she didn’t remember harming them. Once arrested, she denied everything.
Investigators believed that Yui walked into the childrens’ room and attacked them with the meat cleaver, while the kids held their hands over the heads to protect themselves. Prosecutors say she tried to decapitate them.
Acording to 12 News, prosecutors called various witnesses to the stand, including law enforcement officers and Yui’s ex-husband, though nothing is reported on as to his testimony.
Shaylee Beasley, a prosecutor in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, said they believe that Yui acted on her rage shortly after police left the apartment the first time.
“It is very likely that the defendant killed these two children immediately after those two officers left. She was already angry that Tsubasa wasn’t getting her the money she wanted, and now he sent police to the house,” she said.
Beasley added that there was abundant evidence that Yui committed the murders. In the moments following the childrens’ deaths, she had closed the blinds, showered, and gathered some luggage.
“We are here because this woman tried to decapitate two souls,” said Beasley said during her closing statements, according to Arizona Central.
Defense attorneys claim that someone else committed the crime, pointing out that Yui was too weak to have done such a horrifying thing, and maintained that she didn’t kill anyone. Attorneys also say that no one else in the building heard the crime.
Rebecca Felmly, a defense attorney, said the medical examiner’s testimony casts reasonable doubt on Yui’s alleged guilt. According to the ME, the force required to inflict such injuries on the children was substantial and required a high level of energy over a period of time.
“He linked the amount of force to a guillotine,” Felmly told the court.
She also questioned why Yui would go to the cops after.
“Why would she take her bloody clothes and meat cleaver and flag down an officer for help?” she asked.
Felmly also questioned how her client could have gone from non-threatening to homicidal in such a short time.
“How does somebody go from calm, peaceful, to someone who caused that type of injury?” Felmly said. “Those questions, those unanswered questions that you have about that, is reasonable doubt.”
The defense rested its case without calling any witnesses to the stand.
Through it all, Yui had waived her right to be in the court room for her trial. She didn’t appear.
A jury found Yui guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, and two counts of child abuse stemming from the March 2021 incident. Her sentencing is scheduled for March 21, 2025, and she faces a possible life sentence for each murder.
For more information on filicide, follow along as I post my in-depth series on mothers who murder their children:
Fatal Maternity: What is filicide?
Mothers who kill their children are gawked upon by society as many female killers are; with a mix of awe, disgust, and indignation that anyone could harm a child, especially their own. Is she crazy? Cold-hearted? Spiteful? A monster? On drugs? Why did she do it?
Sources
Arizona Department of Child Safety
12 News