TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police last month arrested a 40-year-old man over the alleged fatal stabbing of an elderly woman was stabbed at the victim’s apartment in Machida City.
At around 7:10 p.m. on September 30, officers rushed to the scene after the daughter of Chizuko Akie made an emergency call to police about a stabbing.
Akie had been stabbed several times in the stomach and other parts of her body. She died shortly after being transported to a hospital, police said.
Officers later arrested Kota Kuwano, a resident of Machida, after location him the scene of the crime. “I looked for someone who would be easy to attack,” he said in commenting on allegations of attempted murder.
Akie and Kuwano were not acquainted prior to the incident.
“Why did it have to be my mother?”
The following day, the daughter of the victim gave an interview with Jiji Press (Oct. 2). Looking back on the horrific scene at the time, she shared her heartbreaking thoughts.
That night, the daughter was in the apartment when she heard voices calling out, “Help!” and “Call the police!” When she ran out, she saw her mother lying on the ground and a man brandishing a knife. Her mother was bleeding profusely.
“I’m going to be stabbed too,” she thought. She then returned to her room and calling emergency services. “I didn’t know what was going on.”
Her mother had worked as a cleaner at daycare centers and other facilities in Machida City for many years. She recalled her as a “kind and hardworking person.”
Since she began to have leg problems two or three years ago, her range of movement has become limited, but she still went to the supermarket almost every day. On the day of the incident, she went out shopping alone. She was attacked on her way home.
“If I had struggled with the assailant, would my mother have been saved?” her daughter asks. She can’t get her mother’s final moments out of her mind, and is overcome with feelings of guilt. “It must have hurt. Why did it have to be my mother?” she asks.
“It doesn’t seem real,” she says, “I’m not yet feeling particularly angry,” but she is furious at the suspect. “I want him to be properly punished.”
The daughter strains her voice in adding, “Just hearing about it makes me shiver. He didn’t have to stab her dozens of times. Why was such a cruel method the only option?”
