IBARAKI (TR) – Ibaraki Prefectural Police have arrested a Vietnamese national over a stabbing incident that left a 76-year-old man dead and his wife injured in the town of Yachiyo last month, reports TV Asahi (Sept. 2).
Early on August 24, Hai Dinh Nguyen, a 21-year-old agriculture trainee, allegedly stabbed Isao Osato and his wife, 73-year-old Yuko, at the couple’s residence.
Isao, who suffered several wounds to the chest, was rushed to a hospital where he was confirmed dead. Yuko is listed in serious condition after receiving a wound to the abdomen, police said previously.
Police did not reveal whether Nguyen, who thus far has been accused of attempted murder over the stabbing of Yuko, admits to the allegations.
“That knife”
On the morning of the incident, the couple’s son, 42, who lives nearby, visited the residence after hearing their dog barking. He found his father collapsed in the bedroom. Meanwhile, his mother was in the hallway.
Police retrieved a blood-stained knife from the residence that is believed to have been used in the crime. “That knife is not from the residence,” the son told police.
Police believe that the suspect purchased the knife at a home center the day before the incident.
An examination of security camera footage by police showed a suspicious person in a hooded sweatshirt loitering about 200 meters from the residence at around 1:35 a.m. on August 24.
About 90 minutes later, that same person was seen running in a direction away from the residence in footage taken from that same camera.
“Going splendid”
TBS News (Sept. 5) interviewed the mother of the suspect. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard the news,” she said. “I still can’t believe it. I thought for sure someone else did it. I couldn’t believe that it was done by my child.”
Nguyen has three siblings. After graduating high school and attending university for a short period, he went to Japan “to work for his family,” said his mother. During telephone conversations, he told her that everything “was going splendid.”
She continued, “He had no complaints. He loves Japan. In Japan, the food, the weather and the atmosphere are all better than in Vietnam, he said. He also said that Japanese people are so kind.”
