crime

Man arrested over murders of wife, 2 children to undergo psychiatric evaluation

7 Comments

Prosecutors in Nagoya have decided to have 42-year-old man arrested on suspicion of killing his wife and their two children undergo a psychiatric test to determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial.

Prosecutors said the suspect, Daisuke Tanaka, will undergo tests for three months until Jan 13 before they make a decision on whether to have him stand trial, Kyodo News reported.

Tanaka turned himself in at a police station on Aug 13, accompanied by relatives. He was arrested for killing his wife Tomoko, 42, 9-year-old daughter Chiyu and 6-year-old son Tora. 

Following his arrest, Tanaka was quoted by police as saying he killed Tomoko in a fit of rage after an argument. She died from suffocation, while Chiyu was stabbed in the chest and Tora choked.

The siblings were found dead inside a station wagon in Inuyama, while the body of their mother was found in their home in Fuso.

Tanaka had cuts on his neck and arms and said that he had tried to kill himself.

© Japan Today/KYODO

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7 Comments
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It absolutely matters whether he was mentally ill or not. If, for example, he had developed paranoid schizophrenia and was hearing voices telling to kill his family that does actually matter. There are innumerable neurological conditions that can cause irrationally violent behavior; brain tumors in critical areas of the brain concerned with inhibition control, a person’s flight or fight mechanism etc. Brain abnormalities can be utterly critical in causing such behavior. It really does matter.

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So he choked his wife and little boy to death, and stabbed his little girl to death? Sorry, but a psychiatric evaluation is not what someone like this needs. He was competent enough to get married with another adult and have two children. Other commenters have suggested a far more suitable punishment for this scum than being excused as "mentally ill". There are lots of mentally ill people in the world. They don't go around killing others.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

psychiatric hospitals in Japan is actually the worst possible punishment in Japan. It is almost always a life sentence and you are generally tied up for months or years at a time, never allowed to move and in solitary.

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undergo a psychiatric test to determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial.

The only test this monster should undergo is the one that measures the strength of his neck against gravity, long drop and a sudden stop.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

to determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial

what does it matter?

Just execute him, the end.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

OMG! I’d say his psychiatric state was a bit of a given. However, that should not be an excuse for leniency. He brutally murdered his whole family.

There seems to be a big problem with Japanese people controlling their anger. “I lost my temper and killed them.” is a very common excuse.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

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