Akihabara Update – Bits of News in the wake of the Stabbing Spree in Tokyo

Some updates on the case…

• Workers reported that his company was planning on restructuring and his contract had been extended to the end of August, but one day when he came in to work and his wok clothes were missing from his locker he flipped out. He seems to have thought that the company was trying to give him a message to quit his job.
• It turned out that his work clothes were actually on the rack. When workers went to visit him, they told him that his work clothes were where they always were. He responded by saying he was going to take the day off.

• Of the seven victims, 4 died from being stabbed. 3 died from being hit by the truck.

• He wrote on the message board about people not sitting next to him on the train, and how that made him want to kill them, about considering suicide, about gathering the knives and renting the car he’d use.

• In the hours leading up to his attack he continually updated the message boards about what he was doing. He even explicitly write that he was going to ram his car into people, then when he could no longer use the car he would use his knife. He ended the brief posting by saying, “Minna Sayonara” or “Goodbye Everyone”.

• Also posted on the message boards –
  • “The thing I want to do… murder. My dream… to be on the tabloid shows.”
  • Also messages implying that if he had a girlfriend he wouldn’t be in this mess.

Japan has gotten to be a scary place. CNN mentions things like the killings at an elementary school years ago, but we have crazy crime stories come out every day in Japan. Murders are not uncommon. It’s also not uncommon for murderers like Kato to say things like, “I don’t care who I kill.”