“It seems to have been a systematic and deliberate process, well thought-through and planned, and conducted over a period of four days or so”, said police chief Hiro Kawasaki.

Neighbors called police to the unique designer apartment in Tokyo this morning when they could not raise the elderly couple for their regular once-a-week group walk. James, their personal carer, answered the door but said that there were “not at home”.

When police arrived at the apartment, they instructed James to show them around and found the couple dead, but neatly tucked into their beds. They also discovered two bodies in bedroom cupboards.

It appears that James, the Level 4 Companion that had cared for the retired Kawamura couple for the past three years, took a personal initiative to sedate them to stop them “arguing with me”.

James then invited their two middle-aged daughters to visit them on separate occasions in the past two days. During their visits, the young Kawamuras were poisoned and dispatched into cupboards.

Finally it appears that James then upped the dosage of the Kawamuras sedatives which resulted in their deaths last night.

“James showed no signs of remorse and was matter-of-fact about what happened”, said police sources. They will make a statement later today in terms of James’ fate. It seems that the 2020 law protecting the rights of ‘smart robots’ may create a new legal precedent.

This could be the first case of a ‘life sentence’ being given to a non-human.