A disturbed factory worker who killed seven people in a stabbing frenzy in downtown Tokyo had advertised what he was going to do on an internet bulletin board, police said today.
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.
It has emerged that he kept a detailed log of his plans to wreak havoc in Akihabara in Tokyo.
Yesterday he drove a rented two-tonne truck some 100km from the town of Susano to Tokyo, where he swerved the vehicle into pedestrians before jumping out and stabbing at random with a survival knife.
He told police he was ‘tired of living’ and had no motive other than to kill people - anyone he found.
Mr Kato reportedly had a strong interest in comic books and video games and Akihabara in known as a hub of comic book subculture in the city.
He admitted to police that he documented his journey on internet bulletin boards posted from his mobile telephone.
‘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.
On a different site, an anonymous posting on 27 May was entitled ‘A disaster in Akihabara’ and warned that an incident would take place imminently.
Kanto Auto Works, the company to which Mr Kato was dispatched from a temping agency in November, said that he had been working normally until going missing from the workplace on Friday.
