Police in Ikoma, Nara Prefecture, have arrested a 39-year-old man on suspicion of killing his 2-year-old son by confining him in a plastic storage case, where he died of hypoxia.
According to police, Yusuke Inoue placed his son Yukiya and his 3-year-old daughter in the case at their residence at around 5:50 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, Fuji TV reported. He placed the boy on the bottom and the girl on top of him. The case was 80 cms long, 40 cms wide and 30 cms tall, with two clasps on the top. It could not be opened from the inside.
About 20 minutes later, Inoue noticed Yukiya had lost consciousness and called 119. Inoue's wife said she was in the kitchen cooking at the time and apparently was unaware of what was going on.
Yukiya was taken to hospital where he was confirmed dead. His sister suffered no injury, police said.
Inoue was quoted by police as saying he had placed the children in the case to discipline them because they were loud in the living room and hit the TV set. He said he had done the same thing many times before as a means of discipline. Inoue insisted to police that he did not mean to kill Yukiya and that his actions were just part of parenting.
Police said Tuesday that Inoue will also be charged with the attempted murder of his daughter.
Meanwhile, media reported that a call was made to the children’s consultation office Ikoma last December by a neighbor who heard children crying loudly from inside the apartment.
Officials visited the residence twice to check on the mother and the children, but there seemed to be nothing wrong and so they did not take any measures at the time.
© Japan Today
49 Comments
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Alistair Carnell
Inoue insisted to police that he did not mean to kill Yukiya and that his actions were just part of parenting.
If that's the case, I'd love to give this scumbag some 'parenting' in a locked cell.
thepersoniamnow
Actually that's not parenting but bullying and lording over someone through fear and threats. You suffocated and killed your own child.
iamme
My stomach churned while I read this one. I can't even imagine how anyone could call this "parenting."
The man should be locked away forever, solitary confinement in a small cell with no windows.
nakanoguy01
this is really when there should be an eye for an eye. place him in a plastic container for twenty or thirty minutes and see what happens to him. if he dies, so be it because the gov't didn't mean to kill him. they just wanted to discilpine him.
cleo
If he'd done it before 'many times', and the kids were still loud in the living room and hit the TV set, did he not stop to think that maybe it was a 'means of discipline' that didn't work? It would be too kind in this case to say that repeating the same action and expecting a different result is the sign of insanity. This man is not insane. He's a moron, an idiot, an imbecile, a cretin.
Did the wife know he had done this 'many times' before? And still she left the kids alone with him? Then she's a moron, too.
papigiulio
BS! 20 minutes! Suddenly you don't hear your kids or perhaps in this case PROBABLY screaming and you don't notice anything weird?
How many kids is that this year already?
erbaviva
suspended sentence, next
Kobe White Bar Owner
Ive got a big suit case can we put him in it and see how he feels, below scum.
GW
wife needs to be locked up too!
Saw a bit of this on the TV last nite, sickening! Just imagine whats went through those two kids minds with monsters for parents............
Disillusioned
What a piece of garbage! Locking kids in plastic boxes is not discipline! Is the state of education of parents in this country try where they think that kind of thing is acceptable? You hear this kind of crap all the time! Locking kids in wardrobes, garbage bins, locking them out on the balcony and in bathrooms. It's disgusting what these people think is acceptable discipline.
JackKasket
This is the worst of the dozens of child killing news I've read.
khulifi
He should be place in the same container ...
glasshouse
Sick just sick really lost for words RIP Yukiya
mrkobayashi
The stupidity and lack of patience of some parents is astounding. This POS should never have procreated.
goldorak
What always amazes me in those stories is how 'creative' some J parents are. Weirdos.
miyakojimadan
With the daily news barrage of parents killing their kids, I'm beginning to think that couples should have to go through psychiatric testing and a course in parenting before they should be allowed to have children. People need to take a driving course before they get a driver's license, why not the same for parenting?
nath
Interesting proposal. I'm curious how you propose to deal with those who get pregnant without having first passed the test, or those who get pregnant and then fail the test. Or those who refuse to take it in the first place.
igloobuyer
If one more person tells me Japan doesn't have a serious problem with child abuse and infanticide I sear I''l eat my hat. No, this kind of thing does NOT happen with the same frequency as other developed nations. Write a letter to your local representative.
DaDude
From Discovery Channel's website:
"Twenty-seven children under the age of 15 die from physical abuse or neglect every week in America. According to UNICEF, the United States has 2.4 annual deaths per 100,000 children, compared to 1.4 for France; 1 in Japan, and 0.9 in the United Kingdom."
No matter which country is leading in child abuse deaths, 1 death is 1 too many.
TheGodfather
Meanwhile, back in the real world...
When I first started writing on his site last year I called out the INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE in Japan and the UN Special Rapporteur got right on it.
The Japanese government are slowly waking up to how seriously the rest of the world sees this but the problem is now with the "gullible gaijins" who have been in Japan too long and are still trying to defend the indefensible.
They need to leave the country!!
miyakojimadan
@ Strangerland
Here's how I would do it:
When a pregnant woman goes to her OBGYN for her first checkup, she should be enrolled in a course that teaches the basics of parenting, nutrition etc. If she refuses to take the course, she is cut off from government financial assistance until she does. If they fail the psychiatric test, a memo should be made and a report made to the appropriate agency and the case would be assigned to a case worker. That case worker would have the responsibility to follow up on a regular basis to ensure the mental issues of the mother do not endanger the child.
nath
And if she still refuses, where does that leave the child?
So you would propose forcing all mothers to get a psychiatric test. You don't think there would be problems with privacy? Do you really think such a law would survive even the first challenge? And lets say they do go this route, how long until they start forcing psychiatric tests on people who want to get a job? Or a driver's license? And from there, how long until they start forcing psychiatric tests on everyone, just to be sure?
Don't get me wrong, I understand your anger, and we need to do everything we can within reason to protect kids. But your proposal is unrealistic.
gokai_wo_maneku
It is always too bad when infants die due to the stupidity of their parents. The box shown on NHK news snapped shut, and obviously no air could circulate.
SHIRAISHI-Kazuko
The world is a veil of tears.
clamenza
with animals like that as parents, those kids never had a chance
Myhumbletake
The wife isn't unscathed of accusations. She knew about the atrocities and should be accountable for this despicable crime. May the boy finally find peace.
akoppa
Both, the criminals mother and father, should be disciplined as well letting them to die in a plastic box.
D1SPL
So sad and angry to imagine what the boy must have felt as he was trying to breath and stay alive. And his sister for knowing she was next to her brother while he was dying for no f@!?ing reason.
TheGodfather
"The box shown on NHK news snapped shut, and obviously no air could circulate"
Yes, these parents were expert at ABUSING THEIR CHILDREN so as to leave no visible marks. Until a child dies and suddenly it's a tragic accident.
@Moderators - You can keep deleting my comments but I send my report to the MOFA before you delete the comments. Just imagine how it reads when these incidents are listed one after the other, day after day after day...
http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/firefighter-scalds-girlfriends-18-month-old-daughter-in-tochigi
http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/woman-gets-11-years-for-throwing-5-year-old-son-to-his-death-from-13th-floor-apartment
http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/mother-arrested-for-suffocating-2-year-old-son
http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/woman-arrested-for-strangling-11-year-old-son-to-death
http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/mother-son-found-dead-in-apparent-murder-suicide-in-chiba
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/6-year-old-girl-falls-to-death-from-43rd-floor-in-osaka#comment_2178316
http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/2-year-old-boy-dies-after-being-confined-in-plastic-storage-case
Geoff Gillespie
I've been saying this for years. People seem to think having children is a right but not a responsibility. Time for people to have to earn the right to have a child. There are ways of doing this...but they all seem a little extreme. That being said, maybe it's time to fight fire with fire.
smithinjapan
Maybe he suffers from mental illness, because no sane person would do this to a child. Even if he does, he should be locked up for life -- the wife too, for allowing it to happen and do nothing (and even if she didn't notice this time she must have on the previous 'many' occasions he had done it before... or else she is negligent). This is sick!
serendipitous
That is a tiny space for two kids to be squashed into. Obviously there would have been very little air in the container. If he didn't know they would suffocate to death then he really is an idiot. It is hard not to want him to suffer the same 'punishment' but I guess that would make us the same as him. Forty years in prison so he'll be 79 when he gets out should help him realize why he deserves such a punishment.
Fadamor
With no room to move, his sister might have been the one that killed him. She was on top of him and with every exhale, he would have had to fight against her weight to take in another breath. Another Einstein of a parent... make that "parents". The father claims he had done this many times before. Surely we aren't expected to believe that the mother never knew this had happened?
SpeaklikeGandhi
”he did not mean to kill Yukiya and that his actions were just part of parenting.” Yeah, right: parenting. Place the kids inside of a plastic case! Come on. He knew exactly what he was doing: making the kids suffer. Throw this father into a jail. It seems that every week Japanese parents kill "accidentally" their own kid. Are they paying any attention to what they are doing?
WilliB
igloobuyer:
No, Japan does not. Yes. there are scumbags like this father, but they are rare enough to be a news item on national TV.
No, it happens more often in other developed nations. The difference is that there is so much worse going on in other countries that this sort of thing does not even make it into the news. Tell me which societies are healthier than Japan`s. That will be a short list.
Now enjoy your hat.
Yubaru
So sadly you are very wrong, in the US alone there are 4 to 5 cases of child abuse death every day. A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds....
Read the link here, and seriously it makes one weep.
https://www.childhelp.org/child-abuse-statistics/
Sadly Japan is nothing special here, it just goes along with a number of fallacies that people like to believe about the country that make these crimes seem much worse here.
The image of the safe, kind, outgoing Japanese people, the peace loving Japanese, all of it, are created and maintained through media and the culture. But behind it all, Japan and the people are no different than anyone anywhere else in the world.
TheGodfather
"Japan and the people are no different than anyone anywhere else in the world"
The Japanese themselves think that they are different, and better. That's the definition of racism.
But It's not racism to tell the truth.
Japan is the same as every other country, but worse!!
Moderator
Readers, other countries are not relevant to this discussion.
Mirai Hayashi
What the hell is wrong with these people???!?!
sensei258
But he only killed one child. So, in light of the courts recent sentence of four years for a man who killed four of his children, this guy will probably be given a suspended sentence. After all, it was only poor parenting, not murderous intent, at least according to the courts.
nath
Every time we have an article like this, we have people claiming that the perpetrator will get off with a suspended sentence. But the numbers show that to very rarely being the truth. Jail time is the standard. Maybe not enough jail time (almost always not enough), but they do get jail time.
Citizen2012
http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/charges-dropped-against-29-year-old-woman-arrested-for-killing-2-young-daughters
nath
One example doth not make a statistic.
Giveme_abreak
2 yr old kids are meant to be playful and noisy. If you want some peace and quiet inside your house then don't make kids!!! or better yet don't get married!!!!! live your own pathetic lonely life!!
Cleveryani
This father is sick! Totally sick! I wonder if has been to childhood! His action is nothing but a disgusting one!
Rest in Peace little Yukiya! May your father get what he deserves. Put him in prison inside the same case he used to kill you. :(
Fadamor
I received a thumb down for my previous comment, but I still feel that was the most likely scenario. A small plastic case with two people breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide would quickly result in BOTH children succumbing to hypoxia if the case was airtight. That the sister suffered no injury tells me that there was enough airflow to not only let oxygen in, but ventilate the carbon dioxide out of the case. So why did the brother die of hypoxia? I say the cause was compressive asphyxia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphyxia#Compressive_asphyxia Perhaps the person voting me down thought I was claiming the sister intentionally did it. Based on the description of the case they were placed in, she would not have had the ability to do anything volitional in that confined space. Hopefully she is still too young to have this remain with her throughout her life.
Bob Sneider
This kind of news needs international attention. The world needs to know what these kinds of things have been happening in Japan. I've also noticed that these parents always show no remorse. They always claim that they lost their temper, or was just trying to discipline their kids. If I unintentionally killed my children, I would be so distraught that I would ask the cops to lock me up for life. Whats even worse is that J-Judges seem to buy these sob stories, and the parents get away with petty sentences, like that guy yesterday that burned his house down.
AramaTaihenNoYouDidnt
Hard to believe all this over a TV...!? We continue to witness people value material more than life itself and a child`s welfare paid the price. My thoughts and prayers goes out to Yukiya-san. RIP little one.