TOKYO (AFP) — A disturbed young auto worker who killed seven people on a stabbing frenzy in downtown Tokyo had posted dozens of warnings of what he was going to do on Internet bulletin boards, police said Monday.
As stunned mourners placed flowers, sweets and comic-book images at a makeshift shrine, new details emerged of how he kept a detailed log of his plans to wreak havoc in Akihabara, the hub of Tokyo's comic-book subculture.
The assailant behind Japan's deadliest crime in seven years, 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato, worked on a temporary contract at an auto components factory in central Shizuoka prefecture, police said.
On Sunday, he drove a rented two-tonne truck some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the town of Susano to Tokyo, swerving the vehicle into pedestrians before bursting out and stabbing at random with a survival knife.
He wounded 17 people, seven of whom died, before police forced him to drop his weapon at gunpoint and overpowered him.
He told police he was "tired of living" and had no motive other than to kill people -- anyone he found.
Kato reportedly had a strong interest in comic-book and video-game subculture.
In a school yearbook in which graduating students were asked to describe their personalities, Kato enclosed a picture of an action hero and simply wrote the word "crooked" in English, reports said.
He admitted to police that he had documented his journey on Internet bulletin boards in messages posted from his mobile telephone, a police spokesman said.
"I'll crash my vehicle into people and if the vehicle becomes useless, I'll get out a knife. Goodbye everyone!" said one posting hours before the crime, as quoted by Japanese media.
Reports said he made some 30 anonymous postings on various sites before the crime, including one on May 27 entitled "A disaster in Akihabara ," warning that an incident would take place imminently.
Kanto Auto Works, the company to which Kato was dispatched from a temping agency in November, said he had been working normally until going missing on Friday.
"We've been told that his attitude at work was very good and that he didn't stir any problems in the workplace," said company spokesman Naoyuki Hashimoto.
Residents of Kato's hometown interviewed by Nippon Television said that he did well at school. "He was good both at studying and sports. He was respected in the classroom," one woman said.
Japan prides itself on its public safety and has not seen such a deadly crime since a former mental patient stabbed to death eight children at an elementary school. That incident came seven years to the day before Sunday's stabbing spree.
Chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said officials would study whether laws could be tightened on possession of knives. Japan strictly controls firearms.
"People say that public morality and relations between people are declining," Machmiura said. "But I don't think we can explain this case only by that."
Around the crime scene, overnight rain had washed away the blood stains from the streets of the neon-lit electronics district, where residents placed flowers and pressed their hands together in prayer at a makeshift shrine.
In the Japanese tradition, mourners left offerings at the shrine including sweets, coffee, beer and -- in a twist befitting Akihabara -- comic-book images of action heroes.
"I left coffee because I think that some of the victims will need coffee in the morning," said Ukyo Murakami, a 14-year-old boy on his way to school.
"I'm afraid he did this because he played video games. But he should have known that in life, you can't hit the restart button."
Businesswoman Tomoko Iizuka, 58, was sobbing as she paid her respects with a bouquet of flowers on her way to work.
"The victims included young people with a bright future. Why did he do such a crazy thing?" she said.
"It's all his fault. He deserves the death penalty."
Kazuki Homna, a university student carrying a backpack, said he was a close friend of one of the victims, 21-year-old Mai Muto, with whom he had spent time in San Francisco on a school exchange programme.
"She died not because of illness but because of a cruel tragedy," he said after placing flowers.
"She was dreaming of working in the music industry but couldn't make it. I just can't find the words to say how sorry I am."
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