Yui Inoue, Tempe, Arizona mom found guilty of killing 2 kids with meat cleaver as revenge against children’s father amid ongoing divorce battle.
A Tempe, Arizona mother accused of killing her two children with a meat cleaver was found guilty Monday by a jury. The conviction came after just only two hours deliberation by jurors.
Yui Inoue was convicted on two counts of first degree murder, two counts of child abuse, and one count of disorderly conduct, AZFamily reported.
Cops found the woman’s 7-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter deceased at the family home after Inoue went to a Tempe police station in May 2021 and told officers she heard voices telling her to kill the children.
Tempe, Arizona mom insisted she did not kill her 2 kids
Police said Inoue had threated to stab her husband during an argument hours before the children were killed. The husband told police he didn’t believe the children were in danger and went out to sleep in his car. Police were called to the home at the time but left, with the children still alive.
Responding police found the slain children with multiple lacerations on their bodies, which were covered in trash, boxes, and a mattress.
A meat cleaver with a 6-inch (15-centimeter) blade was found inside a bag with blood-stained clothing in the mother’s vehicle, investigators previously said.
During trial proceedings, prosecutors successfully argued that the mother had killed the two children to ‘get back’ at her husband amid an ongoing divorce.
Prosecutors said the parent reflected in the moment before killing her children and that killing both of them in a row showed premeditation. Prosecutors also successfully argued there is no evidence based on the crime scene and potential motive that anyone else killed the children.
‘Mia and Kai Inoue were sleeping soundly in their beds when their own mother came into their bedroom holding a knife. A meat cleaver, that is literally designed to cut the bones of animals. And she attacked them with it,’ prosecutors said. ‘She had to think. She had to act. And there’s nothing unclear or speculative about any of that’
The parent’s defense had sought to argue that police had arrested the wrong person (and by implication continued to remain at large) and that it was not physically possible for the diminutive woman to have physically committed the slaying.
Inoue, a Japanese speaking parent was not present for the verdict, with the parent learning her fate from her jail cell.
