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A 34-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of stabbing one woman to death and seriously injuring three others during a rampage in a shopping mall in Hokkaido last year.
According to the court ruling, Nobuyuki Matsuhashi, a newspaper delivery man, stabbed the women in an Aeon shopping mall in Kushiro at around 3:15 p.m. on June 20, 2016.
When arrested at the scene, he told police he was suffering from a mental illness, Hokkaido Shimbun reported. "I wanted to end my life. I stabbed them because I believe killing someone is the best way to be sentenced to death," he was quoted as telling the police.
However, a psychiatric examination judged him mentally fit to stand trial.
The dead woman, Masako Tonuma, 68, was stabbed in the back, while a 76-year-old woman was stabbed in the neck and seriously injured. Two other women sustained minor stab wounds.
One of the four women was an employee at the mall and the other three, including Tonuma, were customers, according to Aeon Hokkaido Corp, the mall's operator.
© Japan Today
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Goodlucktoyou
not mentally stable and a coward to boot. i would never advocate suicide, but counselling could of prevented murder, and maybe returned him from his mental hell. Japan needs to stop spending on stupid defence and spend it on the people.