I kind of wonder, if they were in fact bonsai shears, which of the couple they belonged to? Sometimes the translations are off. This ebay auction, for example, isn't really bonsai shears. You can look and see from the construction that they are a pretty ordinary pair of scissors in the hasami style. The blades are much too long for bonsai
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...item=2302986900
When I did a search on the suspect's name, I found that this news item had been listed on a gun lobby site for comments. I was trying to figure out what the spin on that was, whether it was the editorial opinion there that she would have been safe if she had been "packing heat" or something.
She was killed shortly after returning from the police station, where she was told to move to a relatives site or seek police aid if she felt she was in critical danger, and the article makes it sound as if she was murdered just after she got home from that interview.
Regards,
Matt