Update:
The woman arrested Friday on suspicion of murdering two kindergartners in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture, told police she held a grudge against neighborhood parent groups that escorted children to and from kindergarten.
Zheng Yongshan, 34, a Chinese national whose 5-year-old daughter was a classmate of the victims, allegedly stabbed Wakana Taketomo and Jin Sano, both 5, in a car and abandoned their bodies on a street and in a nearby ditch after passing Kamiteru Kindergarten where she should have dropped the children off.
Zheng began complaining to her husband of insomnia several days before the incident, and police suspect she was severely mentally unstable. The police will discuss Zheng's mental health with the Otsu District Public Prosecutors Office to see if a psychiatric test should be conducted after sending her to prosecutors Sunday.
The woman was quoted as telling the police that she was going to kill everybody except her daughter Friday morning.
Although she has remained ambiguous about her motive, Zheng said she was unhappy about the group escort system. The police believe such an attitude may have driven her to murder the children.
She began participating in a parents group that escorts children to and from the kindergarten when her daughter entered a class for 4-year-olds in April. However, she sometimes escorted children even when it was not her turn and sometimes took only her daughter without telling the other parents. After talking to kindergarten authorities, Zheng decided to personally take her daughter to and from the kindergarten until the end of August.
Zheng reportedly told her neighbors that she did not understand Japanese and could not get along well with other parents. However, she began participating in the parents escort group about a month later. She reportedly did not complain about participating in the group.
She became mentally unstable and she received treatment since September 2003. She discontinued the treatment in October last year.
Her husband said she appeared to have been unable to sleep for several days before the murders.
The police suspect Zheng felt isolated because she could not communicate well with mothers of the other children.
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School assesses impact
Kamiteru Kindergarten held an emergency meeting for its faculty Saturday morning to discuss methods to escort children to and from the kindergarten starting Monday. It also held a meeting with members of the parent-teacher association to discuss future measures, including how parents can cooperate with each other.
The Shiga Prefectural Board of Education sent five clinical psychotherapists to the kindergarten where they advised teachers about how to take care of children.
The Nagahama Municipal Board of Education decided that parents of children at 10 kindergartens except Kamiteru Kindergarten in the former city of Nagahama will individually take their own children to and from the kindergartens for now on. At three other kindergartens, parents will escort their children to and from kindergarten by buses operated by the kindergartens or on their own. The former city of Nagahama was merged with Azaicho and Biwacho on Monday.
The Nagahama municipal government began offering a telephone counseling service Saturday to help residents shocked by the incident.
Yomiuri
, Thats just sick
