Nagano prosecutors say that a 32-year-old man arrested after he went on a shooting and stabbing rampage that left four people dead, will undergo psychiatric tests for three months to determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial.
Masanori Aoki surrendered to police after holing up for about 12 hours following the attacks on May 25. He first stabbed two local women and returned to his home nearby before going out again with a hunting gun.
He fired at the driver's side of a police car that arrived following a report about a stabbing, resulting in the deaths of two policemen -- Yoshiki Tamai, 46, and Takuo Ikeuchi, 61. Aoki then barricaded himself in his home.
One of the stabbing victims, Yasuko Takeuchi, 70, was found collapsed around 50 meters from Aoki's home, while the other, Yukie Murakami, 66, who is believed to have been taking a walk with Takeuchi and tried to run away from Aoki, was stabbed from behind.
Aoki has been quoted as telling investigators that the women said "bad things about me."
During the standoff, Aoki, the son of a local assembly member who resigned following the incident, contemplated suicide but could not go through with it, so he handed a gun to his mother and asked her to shoot him, a source said, citing the account the mother gave to the police.
The mother took the gun, ran away and placed it on a road near the home in Nakano, Nagano Prefecture.
According to the police, the suspect has held and renewed licenses for four hunting guns, including shotguns and air guns, since 2015.
Aoki was quoted as telling investigators that he killed the policemen as he was afraid they would "shoot and kill me.”
The psychiatric evaluation will last until Nov 8.
© Japan Today/Kyodo
4 Comments
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Jonathan Prin
After reading the article, that person seems everything outside insane.
The gallows waiting for him since he kileed several persons with clear intent to the point he asked his mother to finish him ?
Zoroto
Suspended sentence incoming.
Concerned Citizen
Should his mental state make that much difference to his sentence? Whatever his mental state was it resulted in four senseless innocent deaths. He should be imprisoned for a very long at the least.
kaimycahl
That didn't happen no one in Japan gets killed with guns, I could only believe it if they say the victims was killed by knives!!! Ok GUNS kill, Knives kill murder is murder regardless of the type of weapon use to commit the crime.