A 33-year-old unemployed man turned himself in at a koban (police box) on Sunday night, three hours after a 57-year-old Filipino woman was fatally stabbed near Yokohama Station.
According to to police, a passerby called 110 just before 8 p.m. and said a woman was collapsed on a street in Nishi Ward and bleeding from the chest, Kyodo News reported. The woman was rushed to a hospital, but died about an hour after arriving.
Police said the woman, Alice Himao Isozaki, had knife wounds to her chest and other parts of her body.
At around 11 p.m., Sachio Ando, who lives in Machida, Tokyo, showed up at a koban near where the victim's body was found, and said he had stabbed a woman whom he didn't know. He had a blood-stained knife with him and was later arrested on suspicion of murder.
Police said Monday that Ando was arrested last year after he tried to kill his mother at their home, and that he had been committed to an institution for therapy, but was released recently.
© Japan Today
22 Comments
Login to comment
MarkX
Great work there. Arrested for trying to kill his mother and only in an institution for a year and then released to kill again.
elephant200
I don't know Japan is a so dangerous place.
BertieWooster
“Police said Monday that Ando was arrested last year after he tried to kill his mother at their home, and that he had been committed to an institution for therapy, but was released recently.”
Wasn't very effective was it?
Yet another psych failure!
Mr Kipling
I'm not a psychiatrist but it seems that the therapy didn't do a lot of good.
Fighto!
Rest in Peace to this innocent Filipina woman.
I hope dearly this evil, cowardly killer will be hung and do the world a favour.
Redemption
Poor woman. I was just around Yokohama station yesterday. It seems safe but there are weirdos lurking on side streets.
mountainbear
There are dangers everywhere unless you know of a place on Earth that does not have murder.
garypen
It's a tragedy when any innocent person is murdered, of course. But, I find it especially sad when a random, innocent stranger just going about their day is murdered in cold blood by a psycho like this.
Fighto!
Japan is incredibly safe.
Single murders like this rarely get reported in super-dangerous places like America.
sakurasuki
Releasing psycho to the society before really being cured 100% well done Japan!
Since it's in Japan, you have psycho with attitude.
She might still be breadwinner for her family both in Japan and Philippines before her death, may she rest in peace.
Lindsay
Another one slips through the cracks of Japanese mental health. Why was he released?
MilesTeg
Mental health is a worldwide, cross-cultural issue that isn't being properly addressed anywhere. Combined with drug and alcohol addiction and homelessness, law enforcement aren't properly trained to deal with it. Governments aren't addressing the problem nor spending enough money and attention. It's not the hardened criminal that is committing crimes and murder as much as the mentally ill. Random attacks, people released only to commit more attacks. It's an extremely difficult to address as each person is different. They could be suffering from trauma (environmental factors) or physiological causes (genetic) or in some cases both. It can take years for someone to recover which requires long term supervision, institutionalization, and treatment. With economies on the downturn, money isn't being used to address the problem and nobody seems to care until it affects family or friends.
Peter Neil
sakurasukiToday 06:38 pm JST
there are no cures for mental illness. psychiatry has never cured anyone. this is well understood and psychiatry has never claimed to be able to cure mental illness.
the best outcome is to only manage and control mental illness through drugs and therapy.
wolfshine
You are wrong and it would be better if you stopped opining on matters you have no actual knowledge or experience in.
Single murders absolutely get reported on in the United States. They get reported on in the local news, just not national news, because the national news not only covers major nationwide stories and big events but also international affairs. Moreover the US is three times the population of and several times the size of Japan, also with several ethnic demographics. If someone gets murdered in Chicago, that may not exactly be relevant information for someone in suburban Florida which geographically may as well be a separate country. However, in Japan, somebody getting murdered in the second biggest city in the biggest metropolitan area in front of the fourth or fifth busiest train station in the world, yeh, that actually is relevant news for them.
Let's stop acting like Japanese people are so high and mighty and better than everyone else. It is so tiresome and cliche.
Redemption
And institutionalization for violent persons. This man should not have been out on the streets.
Peter Neil
RedemptionJune 10 10:07 pm JST
absolutely. a systemic failure that should be investigated and people in the field are, or should be licensed.
WA4TKG
Now you know
sakurasuki
Exactly, need to wait another person to die first on the street to before really take that into consideration.
bass4funk
Probably not, normally the death sentence is imposed if you kill two or more, most likely he will go to prison, as to how long, is up in the air.
Jind
I hope this time he would NOT be released.
So sad for the woman. RIP.
Mocheake
Yeah, sure. You words will be so comforting to all the murder victims' families here.
DanteKH
This is yet another fail of Japan's mental institutions. This guy, like too many more before him should have never been released back into society.
How many more innocents have to die?