crime

Woman arrested for fatally stabbing 2-month-old daughter

35 Comments

Police in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward on Monday arrested a 36-year-old woman on suspicion of fatally stabbing her 2-month-old daughter.

According to police, they received a call at around 3 a.m. reporting that a woman had killed her daughter. TBS reported that police rushed to the apartment and found the 2-month-old girl lying on her bed with stab wounds to her stomach. The child also had strangulation marks on her neck, caused by a towel, police said. She was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said.

Police said the child's mother, identified as Megumi Yamagishi, had called her mother and told her what she had done, and it was the grandmother who contacted police.

Yamagishi went missing after calling her mother, but was taken into custody in Kanagawa Prefecture. Police quoted her as saying she killed her daughter Ema because she appeared mentally ll and she worried about her ability to raise her. Yamagishi also said she wanted to kill herself.

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35 Comments
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Why there are so many "thumbs down" for the people who are bashing this woman who killed her innocent and helpless two-month-old child, I can't comprehend.

Priorities people. Sympathy for the innocent – and let the trash get thrown away.

Disgusting.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Yet no one would say these things had the woman aborted the baby, no! They would say, "Mommies choice!" "It was HER BODY!" "It wasn't a human yet!"

Exactly.

Amazing what a few months time does to all you people's perceptions.

It's not perception that changes in a few months.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

she appeared mentally ll and she worried about her ability to raise her

this woman is apparently mentally ill.. and she was correct.. she had no ability to raise a baby. disgusting. she should have called her mother before she did this.. grandma could have helped.. really sad.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Yet no one would say these things had the woman aborted the baby, no! They would say, "Mommies choice!" "It was HER BODY!" "It wasn't a human yet!"

Amazing what a few months time does to all you people's perceptions. You bad-mouth someone who blows cigarette smoke in her home and wax poxetic on how wonderful abortion is. No child ever supported abortion.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

There is no excuse whatsoever in killing your own child, nor it may not be relevant to this case, but I think one of the problems in Japan are those check-ups (1 months, 3 month, 6 months, 1 year etc.) that they have at your local health office. If your child is slightly smaller than adverage, or does not do this or that, they say there may be something wrong with the child, and in some cases blames the mother indirectly. For some mothers, it's so much pressure. Both of my children weren't your adverage healthy baby, but since I had a regular check-up with an excellent doctor who guided me from the start, we came through just fine. I guess this sort of help was not there for this mother.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Not the kind of news i want to read in the morning RIP little one.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Our minds are tremendous mysteries. Depression and other inbalances contribute to people cracking. Nothing can justify or explain the unexplainable. This is the dark side of the human condition. A defenseless baby's life was brutally taken. All of us are shocked with horror and only wish somehow, some way someone could have intervened.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I can't believe there are people here who sympathize with this monster. The baby cried to too much so it got what was coming to her...really?? The woman has options. If she could not hack it as a mother, then put her up for adoption. There are PLENTY of loving families out there could handle a crying baby or two, and not stab her just because YOU gave up on life...PATHETIC! NO SYMPATHY WHAT-SO-EVER!

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

I can't be sure if there is but the cities should have a program that would educate pregnant woman and their husbands regarding this type of infanticide and child killings so that someone would come to the assistance of a parant with these problems.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

This is sad but, remember don't say what you would have done or question the motives unless you have walked in the shoes of the mother. We don't know what happened with her mind set, unfortunately she killed her child but still lets not trash her. We have never been in such a situation! This could happen anywhere not just Japan and not just to this women it could happen to any one of us! WE are all human!

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Japan has a cultural history of infanticide called Mabiki so we shouldn't be too judgemental but in the 21 century?

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

It's quite odd that people comment that they hear the same excuse all the time. It just shows how often this happens in Japan. Please don't give me a thumbs down by defending it with, "it happens all over the world." Yeah, it does, but not every second day!

Do you follow the news in every single country or base your whole opinion on life because of this website?

2 ( +4 / -2 )

This time i cannot feel sympathy for the woman.

Yeah there is postpartum depression, and other circumstances that can drive you to the edge, but her explanation is way too rational to think she was not herself when she strangled and stabbed her daughter, She was unfit to be a mother, couldn't cope with that responsibility, but if she wanted to really kill herself, why call her mother? any suicide when really wants to die, they just do it they don't call or threaten to die. Just it sounds to me, that what she told the police was BS

1 ( +4 / -3 )

I know that many of you are totally against the death penalty but I say if you take a life then the life of the person that took the life is also taken!

A two month old baby is defenseless! Parents are supposed to protect their children! But so much news recently about this sort of crime!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Yes sakurala!

You're so right... Why can't people see this horrible case for what it is?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

What a sad story. I wonder what support she had, what resources had been given to her, what her reason was for thinking her daughter had a mental illness and what her mental condition was. I know when my daughter was just 2 months old, there were nights that she cried, screamed and cried some more and I was so sleep deprived that I had I just walk away and ask my husband to take over...maybe she didn't have that option and snapped. I hope her baby is at peace now and the mother will get the support and rehabilitation she clearly needs.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Burn in hell woman. People that murder other people for selfish reasons as this have to be the worst scum on earth. I hope she goes to Jail for life and rots away in there!

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

poor child, rest in peace.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

It's quite odd that people comment that they hear the same excuse all the time. It just shows how often this happens in Japan. Please don't give me a thumbs down by defending it with, "it happens all over the world." Yeah, it does, but not every second day!

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

@cracaphat

You're failing to grasp the reality of mental illness. A shattered mind is no different to a shattered leg. It doesn't work like it' s supposed to.

Would you expect an athlete with a fractured thighbone to run normally?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Why is it that the person who wants to die always survives? What a selfish little rodent. I hope she lives a long time so that she basks in this shame for a very long time

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

A little more information would be helpful like the whereabouts of her husband at the time of the slaying or was she a single mother, was this her only child as she is 36, etc.... just to give a little more depth to the story.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

How many kids have to be killed by mother/family member before this country wakes up and looks at the lack of support for parents and mental health issue. I am sick of reading such stories here.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

Post-natal depression, single mother, non-supportive BF and Abenomics anything is possible

1 ( +6 / -5 )

Stupid , sick women ... I guess she is single mother.

-13 ( +1 / -14 )

Post-natal depression can drive the nicest woman in the world to carry out horrific acts like this.

Those who haven't been there shouldn't judge.

12 ( +17 / -5 )

why not have an abortion before the baby is born? better yet, use a condom!

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

There is so much wrong about this and I cannot understand how/why anybody would do this to their own child. If she is unable or unwilling to raise her child, then why not give her up for adoption or even put her in a foster home? I don't get why she went through pregnancy & childbirth and raised the girl for 2 months before this outcome.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

What a monster... This kind of person should be placed in a prison full of her own kind and throw away the key.

-4 ( +5 / -9 )

How about not kill either of yourselves and get some help to resolve whatever could have triggered this.

17 ( +17 / -0 )

Police quoted her as saying she wanted to kill herself.

They always say that.

Somehow, though, they never do it. But the innocent person they kill first doesn't have much of a choice in the matter.

At the risk of sounding flippant: anyone out there who wants to kill someone and then kill yourself too, do the self-killing part first.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

I'm sick of this kind of news.

Kill yourself and let your child have a chance at life.

11 ( +16 / -7 )

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