A man convicted of murdering a 89-year-old in Auckland may have been acting out a scene from a Japanese anime TV series through the crime, authorities have said. Gabriel Hikari Yad-Elohim killed Michael Mulholland in the stairwell of his flat in 2017.
The 36-year-old's lawyers had argued that he was insane at the time he killed Mulholland and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He is now serving a life prison sentence for the brutal murder.
Yad-Elohim hit the victim 90 times in just a few minutes which included kicks and stomps to the head. Mulholland died due to his severe injuries soon after.
Now, the killer has appealed to the Supreme Court with a video from a Japanese animated series called Bleach where a Grim Reaper-style character Ichigo Kurosaki who defends people from evil spirits and guides souls to the afterlife.
Anime monologue
A forensic psychiatrist claimed that the murdered had been acting as the anime character after noticing uncanny similarities between the anime and the attack.
Shockingly, Yad-Elohim gave a monologue in the Japanese language which matched one in the show. "The argument is that the video and the transcript together justify the inference that Mr Yad-Elohim was in the grip of a delusion when he attacked Mr Mulholland," the court said, adding that he believed he was a character from the anime.
{{/usCountry}}Shockingly, Yad-Elohim gave a monologue in the Japanese language which matched one in the show. "The argument is that the video and the transcript together justify the inference that Mr Yad-Elohim was in the grip of a delusion when he attacked Mr Mulholland," the court said, adding that he believed he was a character from the anime.
{{/usCountry}}Yad-Elohim is reported to be hearing voices, seeing ghosts and thought he was an anime character at the time of the attack.
Had never met his victim before
On the day of the murder, the killer went to the victim's apartment building with a sex worker to buy drugs. The woman told him to wait downstairs and then fled from the scene with his money.
Enraged, Yad-Elohim then went to Mulholland's apartment and killed him in a brutal attack, kicking and stomping on him for about seven minutes. He had never met Mulholland before that day.
Yad-Elohim was a patient at the Auckland District Health Board's acute mental health unit and was released just before the murder.
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