An Arizona mother who murdered her two children, ages 7 and 9, with a meat cleaver “designed to cut the bones of animals” will die in prison after receiving two consecutive life sentences on Friday for her heinous crimes.
According to AZFamily, Maricopa County Superior Judge Jeffrey Rueter sentenced Yui Inoue, 44, and did not mince words with her.
“Words can’t adequately describe what occurred,” Rueter told AZFamily.
“I can’t imagine what those children went through in their last minutes,” he told the court. “Fear, pain, and suffering. It is incomprehensible.
Inoue, speaking through a Japanese interpreter, expressed her belief that her children were not dead. She received two life sentences plus two 20-year sentences to be served consecutively.
“They’re spending time with my parents,” Inoue reportedly stated. “I love my children very much, so this is very strange. “My kids are with my parents.”
Inoue, who lived in Tempe, was accused of murdering her two children in a heinous 2021 murder case, which concluded in February with her conviction.
“Mia and Kai Inoue were sleeping peacefully in their beds when their mother entered their room with a knife and meat cleaver… “And she attacked them with it,” prosecutors stated during closing arguments, according to AZFamily. “She needed to think. She needed to act. There’s nothing vague or speculative about any of that.”
A Maricopa County jury convicted Inoue of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of child abuse in connection with the Arizona Department of Child Safety’s prior investigation into the May 2021 murders of her children, Mia and Kai Inoue, who were identified by local officials.
Prosecutors claim Inoue murdered her two children after hearing “voices telling her to kill” them. After that, she called 911 and went to a police substation on East Apache Boulevard near Arizona State University to flag down officers.
According to police, the distraught mother spoke primarily in Japanese and reportedly confessed to the officers on the spot about the slayings. In response, authorities went to Inoue’s apartment and discovered her children’s mutilated bodies.
“[S]he was hearing voices telling her to kill her children,” the charging documents read.
Inoue later told police that she awoke at 4:30 a.m. with blood on her hands and discovered her children dead and covered in blood near a doorway. After that, she claimed she took a bath and “woke up” to the reality of the violence she had committed.
Her lawyers claim Inoue has no recollection of carrying out the killings. According to local ABC affiliate KNXV, Tempe police discovered a blood-soaked meat cleaver inside the vehicle that Inoue drove to the police station.
“We are here because this woman tried to decapitate two souls,” Maricopa County prosecutor Shaylee Beasley stated during her closing arguments in February, according to the Arizona Republic.
Beasley detailed how Inoue “delivered chop after chop” to the children while both “tried to protect their heads.” She reportedly showed the jury close-up photos of the children’s horrific injuries and claimed their deaths were caused by a bitter divorce from their father.
Rebecca Felmly, Inoue’s attorney, previously stated that she believed there was enough reasonable doubt presented during the trial for the jury to return a not guilty verdict. Inoue told the judge “I did not kill anybody” through her interpreter during her first court appearance in 2021.
“(The medical examiner) likened the amount of force to a guillotine,” Felmly told AZFamily. “She is a tiny, slightly built woman. She lacks the energy, power, and strength to cause that kind of harm to those children.”
The child abuse case in which Inoue was convicted stemmed from a report made by Inoue’s husband in March 2021, just months before the killings, stating that Inoue “took Kai” and their whereabouts remained unknown. “Police eventually located Ms. Inoue and Kai behind a convenience store,” DCS officials stated in May 2021. “Ms. Inoue was taken to a psychiatric hospital and Kai was returned to his father.”
DCS investigators stated that they saw no “visible signs of abuse or neglect on the children,” and that the children felt “safe with their parents.” According to DCS officials, the investigation revealed no evidence to warrant removal from the home.