crime

76-year-old woman arrested for killing husband with saw

28 Comments

Police in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, have arrested a 76-year-old woman on suspicion of killing her 83-year-old husband with a saw.

According to police, Yoko Maru has admitted to killing her husband Toshio by cutting his neck with a saw for about two hours from 11 a.m. on Friday as he slept on his side in his futon, Fuji TV reported. Maru was quoted by police as saying she had hated her husband for years.

Police said the couple lived with their son who was at work on Friday and did not return home until late at night. Maru called 110 at around 8 p.m. and said she had killed her husband.

Police said Maru told them her husband used to beat her and never give her any money and that her hatred for him and been building up over many years.

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28 Comments
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What the woman did is murder, but in Japanese articles it is also mentioned (same as in the article above) that she was beaten for years. She has a mental colaps but again some readers here do think better. Glad they do not represent the law.

9 ( +12 / -3 )

This sounds very fishy. You don't kill someone with a saw over a span of two hours.

Police said Maru told them her husband used to beat her and never give her any money and that her hatred for him and been building up over many years

A lot of men seem terrified by their wives' profligacy in Japan. The country needs to address this myth of a housewife's entitlement (to be a career housewife at best, and an insatiable parasite at worst) in such an expensive, materialistic, transactional society.

Where's the love?

2 ( +7 / -5 )

Friday the 13th action with a plain saw instead of a chainsaw. Scary indeed. No reason to kill out of hatred.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Two hours. The blood must have been everywhere. She could have just left him. Premeditated murder at its finest. But why a saw?

0 ( +4 / -4 )

It seems bizarre that he didn't wake up. After 10 minutes of sawing wood, I'm usually bored and my hand is starting to hurt. Two hours is very impressive. Most Japanese carpenters I've seen would stop halfway for a cigarette.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

Yoko Maru has admitted to killing her husband Toshio by cutting his neck with a saw for about two hours from 11 a.m. on Friday as he slept on his side in his futon,

Her husband must have been in a heck of a deep sleep while she was sawing away on his neck for two hours. I suspect the conundrum can be easily explained by something "lost in translation". Whatever, she must have been driven to state of insanity by years of abuse to end up solving her misalliance with a saw.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Must have been a blunt saw to take two hrs..

Oh dear...how horrible.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

It seems bizarre that he didn't wake up. 

Is it too much to assume that he died in the first few seconds (she was cutting his neck with a saw after all) but she continued anyway just to make sure he was dead?

0 ( +2 / -2 )

If this act went on for two hours, pretty sure the autopsy will reveal he was already unconscious when it began, by whatever means was convenient.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

She should have used "I thought it was a dream, I must've had too much to drink" confession. Then explain the years of mental abuse, possibly physical at times.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

her hatred for him and been building up over many years.

There are a lot of older couples like this. It's sad, and both are culpable.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Japan Today editors - You've reported on several old couple crimes lately. What happens after the people are charged with murder? Do you have any follow-up stories? Are there many old people incarcerated for spouse killings? Or for just putting the departed's body in the closet for several months like other of your reports? While these are horrific crimes, you don't seem to report much on trials or outcomes after the people are charged. No Shukan Weekly or other articles on what happens to those charged?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

I wonder if she used an electric saw or traditional Japanese saw?

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Police said Maru told them her husband used to beat her and never give her any money and that her hatred for him and been building up over many years.

Maru was quoted by police as saying she had hated her husband for years.

Its sad that it came to that! She could've just divorced him, but the whole idea in Japan of "keeping up appearances" as in pretending all is lovely on this side of the fence and the abuse/fear of her husband if she had left him couyld've prevented her from leaving. But it shouldn't have come to that!

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

I am curious how you can saw at someones neck for 2 hours without waking him up? The article must be missing some information, like for example sleeping pills?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Sigh. She wasn't sawing away at his neck for 2 hours. She sat on him, slit his throat with a folding handsaw, then remained sat on top of him for two hours until he was dead.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Damn @performingmonkey.

too much detail, my dreams tonight will be scary, I’m gonna hide my saws and chainsaw.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

PerformingMonkey

Sigh. She wasn't sawing away at his neck for 2 hours. She sat on him, slit his throat with a folding handsaw, then remained sat on top of him for two hours until he was dead.

Maybe. But the article does say that. The article says: "by cutting his neck with a saw for about two hours".

Hence my question.

How do you know the details of this case?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Wow! This was personal! She hates him!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Sounds like battered wife syndrome. Tragic.

Always amazed at the horror people can inflict on each other.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Hated him for five years? Quite a twist on Veni, vidi, vici.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

All relevant questions. (However, too much work). *@Roten 10:50 am JST “*Japan Today editors - You've reported on several old couple crimes lately. What happens after the people are charged with murder? Do you have any follow-up stories? Are there many old people incarcerated for spouse killings? Or for just putting the departed's body in the closet for several months like other of your reports? While these are horrific crimes, you don't seem to report much on trials or outcomes after the people are charged. No Shukan Weekly or other articles on what happens to those charged?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Savage, cold blooded lunatic. so why did she stay with him all these years, probably can't do anthing for herself and used him till he became USLESS.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Wow that was deep hatred, perhaps he beat her, but giving her no money is not the reason to kill him after all these years. I am not living in her shoes but she could have PROBABLY divorced him.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The article says: "by cutting his neck with a saw for about two hours".

The article is writing a translation from Japanese. Looking at it with an eye for that shows that the person who translated it probably wasn't a very good translator - this language is very unnatural.

Hence my question.

How do you know the details of this case?

That's a question that can, and should, be asked of EVERY story on JT. People read a few paragraphs and think they have enough information to call everyone guilty or innocent. I'm not smart enough to tell whether someone is guilty or innocent from a few paragraphs, but I'll tell you this, I'm a lot smarter than every poster on this site who thinks they can. I'm smart enough to know that one can't determine guilt from such little information.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It's bad enough being older, but being older in a desperately hateful situation with no clear escape must be desperation squared. It's difficult to parse "...about 2 hours..." but he must have passed well before two hours unless she saved the Carotids and Jugulars for last. Perhaps, with every pull of her saw (Japanese saws cut on the 'pull'), she remembered a blow, a refusal to give her money she really needed, and almost certainly many of the sorts of insults and disappointments a pathological personality can heap upon their captive victim. And, my guess, she will NEVER be sorry she did it. We can ask why she didn't leave but them we must also ask millions of women remaining is such circumstances why they don't leave. But some of the voices we hear here of outrage and condemnation come, I'm certain, from people who may fear that, someday, THEY might wake up to a similar circumstance... How sad these stories of Human relationships in which, for some shining span of time, there was happiness for the people, the birth of a son...what happens to us? How do we come to such bitterness and pain...? Not all, maybe, but sooo many...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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