A 70 year old man in Japan’s Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, stabbed a 64 year old lady to death this past Thursday over some stray cats.

An emergency call was sent to the police around 1:40 p.m. that day from a Funabashi resident. Nobuko Okado was lying on the road bleeding when the police arrived. Kiichi Hayashi was standing near the scene of the crime (shown left) with a knife in his hands. He was immediately arrested under suspicion of attempted murder and violating the Firearms and Swords Control Law. Okado died 90 minutes later at a hospital, upgrading the charges against Hayashi.

Hayashi had been feeding stray cats at his apartment complex for 1-2 years and his neighbors, including Okado, have had complaints about those cats leaving their feces everywhere. On Thursday, Hayashi had been drinking at home and upon seeing Ms. Okado return home from an outing, grabbed his knife and stabbed her in the abdomen twice.

He has reportedly admitted to the crime saying, “I got angry when I was warned about the cats.”

Apparently Hayashi has had a few arguments with Okado, one being about Okado scattering a disinfectant around her home and him saying, “Are you trying to kill the cats by spreading chemicals around?” He was also reported to have shouted at a town association worker yelling, “If I hear one word more about this, there’s no telling what I might do.”

Investigators say that Hayashi lived alone so he may have been one lonely old man who befriended the cats and felt offended that his neighbors didn’t want his new ‘friends’ around. Still, I don’t think his reasons justify his actions.

Source: Mainichi Daily News