Mother murdered two young children after hearing voices telling her to do it, police say

An Arizona mother charged with murdering her two young children reportedly told police she heard voices in her head telling her to commit the heinous crime.

What happened?

The mother, 40-year-old Yui Inoue of Tempe, Arizona, was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder on Sunday after her 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son were found dead in the family's apartment, the Arizona Republic reported.

According to the news outlet, Tempe Police Sergeant Steve Carbajal said authorities first became aware of the situation after Inoue flagged down officers at a nearby department substation and led them to the apartment, where the children's bodies were discovered. She reportedly told police at the time that she had heard voices telling her to kill her children.

Carbajal said there were "obvious signs of physical trauma" at the scene. Citing a police statement, he Arizona Republic noted that officers found large amounts of blood at the house and that the children sustained what appeared to be self-defense wounds, "including cuts from a sharp object and some amputations."

During an interview, Inoue reportedly told detectives that she had been in an argument with the children's father over finances the previous night. She claimed that after he left, she went to sleep with the two children, but then woke up at around 4:30 a.m. with blood on her hands and arms.

Inoue reportedly claimed she didn't believe she had killed the children, but couldn't remember. She explained that after she took a bath that morning she suddenly "woke up" to the situation and decided to alert the police.

What else?

The argument that Inoue described evidently had been so intense that police responded to the apartment following reports of a domestic dispute. But Carbajal said that incident didn't result in any arrests, since the parents agreed to separate and the two kids were safely in their beds when officers left. They had no idea of the atrocity that would occur only hours later.

"At that time everything seemed to be OK. There was no immediate information that something like this would happen," Carbajal said, noting that the father had reportedly gone to go sleep at his office. The father, who is not a suspect in the crime, reportedly broke down crying when he learned his two young children were dead.

Police said that the two parents were reportedly in the process of getting a divorce.

Mom arrested after her 2 kids found murdered in Tempewww.youtube.com

The horrific crime has reportedly taken a toll on officers as well as neighbors of the family.

"We have a lot of officers right now that are struggling," Carbajal said. "Just me talking to you right now, just kind of thinking what they went through is something we can't even put into words right now."

One neighbor recalled that she had recently seen the two children playing in the apartment complex's pool a couple times with their mom present.

"They were happy, beautiful children," she recalled. "It's been heavy on a lot of our hearts here. A lot of people are really confused about what happened. A lot of us heard screaming. It's been scary."