Yui Inoue: Woman convicted of murdering children gets handed her sentence
Inoue claims she doesn't remember killing her kids, even says they're still alive, but will spend the rest of her life in prison for their murders
A woman convicted of murdering her two children with a meat cleaver in 2021 will face life in prison.
AZ Family reports that on May 2, 2025, a judge sentenced 44-year-old Yui Inoue to two life sentences for the violent murders of her kids, along with two 20-year sentences for other charges, which she will serve consecutively.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jeffery Rueter commented on how gruesome and heartbreaking this case was.
“Words can’t adequately describe what occurred,” he said before announcing the sentence. “I can’t imagine what those children went through in their last minutes, the fear, the pain, the suffering. It’s incomprehensible.”
Inoue, however, made a bizarre statement through the interpreter: she claimed her children aren’t even dead.
“They are spending time with my parents,” she said. “I love my children very much so it’s very strange. My children are with my parents.”
Police responded to the apartment where the family lived on May 14, 2021 to defuse a domestic dispute between Inoue and her husband. Fox 10 previously reported that the couple were proceeding through a divorce.
Things appeared to calm down. The children were sleeping. Tsubasa, the children’s father, had left the home, leaving Yui there to stew on the argument.
AZ Family states that at about 7:30 the next morning, Yui appeared at the Tempe Police Station and told them she heard voices which told her to kill her children.
Yui allegedly told police that she went to bed with her kids and woke up to find blood everywhere, claimed she didn’t remember attacking them, 12News previously reported.
Police returned to the apartment to not only find the children were dead, but that whoever had murdered them, had allegedly done so with a meat cleaver.
Fox 10 lists lacerations, cuts, and amputations “consistent with a violent attack and defensive wounds” as the injuries seen on the children.
“The number of injuries suffered by each one of these children was too many to count,” the prosecutor said during opening statements of the trial.
The state, in asking the judge to hand down life sentences, wrote in a memorandum, cited by AZ Family:
“The children were helpless, sleeping, and completely at the mercy of their own mother who showed none. These deaths were physically painful and emotionally torturous. The first responders, detectives, crime scene specialists, and medical examiner are permanently traumatized by the injuries inflicted on these children. The children’s friends, school teachers, and Tempe community were harmed by such a horrific event. There is no mitigation that warrants anything less than consecutive, presumptive terms for these crimes.”
The prosecutor echoed that sentiment during the hearing, according to 12News.
“This has been one of the most difficult cases that the investigators, the crime scene specialists and lawyers on both sides have ever worked on,” she said.
Tammy Thaete, the kids’ school principal, read a victim impact statement along with family members.
“Their absence from our school community has been felt every day since their death,” Thaete said. “We miss their warm and welcoming smiles. We miss their gentle spirits. We miss their infectious giggles.”
“Although they were both children,” she added. “I want this court to know their short lives mattered.”
More on this case here:
Yui Inoue: Woman convicted of murdering her two children with meat cleaver in revenge against ex-husband
Content warning: Some graphic descriptions of the crime scene and child murders. Please read at your own discretion.
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