A Tokyo man who has been receiving treatment for mental disease slashed a 71-year-old woman early Mar. 17 on a road in Nakano Ward.
The woman, identified as Natsuko Shimada, suffered a serious neck wound. Her assailant was arrested on suspicion of committing bodily injury when he showed up at a police station later.
The man, whose name was being withheld, told investigators he had been "given a divine order to attack a person," police said. At about 5 a.m., residents in the neighborhood heard a woman scream for a help and found Shimada lying in a pool of blood with a man standing beside her on a road in front of their condominium at the Kamitakada section of Nakano Ward. Shimada was cleaning part of the road in front of the condominium at the time, they said. The man, who was holding what appeared to be a bloody cooking knife, fled while Shimada was being taken to a nearby hospital, local residents told police.