As families of eight young victims killed in a brutal knife attack on a primary school in Osaka mourn their dead, a clearer picture has been emerging of their attacker.
Buddhist services for seven children, including the only boy - six-year-old Takahiro Totsuka - were held on Saturday and yesterday. Some of the 15 injured, including a teacher who underwent emergency surgery on Friday night, are still in hospital.
Survivors of the rampage have described a short, pudgy man in a white jacket walking calmly from classroom to classroom slashing at random before being tackled by two teachers.
Police said the man bought the 15 cm knife at a local store the morning of the attack and doped himself with tranquilisers before driving himself to the Ikeda Primary School in Osaka's suburbs.
A relative of Maiko Isaka, one of the victims, said: "It's hard to believe that it was an act of a human being."
Meanwhile, family and associates of the only suspect, Mr Mamoru Takuma (37), have described a social misfit with a history of mental illness and violence who found it difficult to hold down a job. Mr Takuma, who was divorced and lived alone, first visited a psychiatric hospital while still in his teens. He managed to work for a number of years as bus driver.
In 1999 he was arrested for spiking the tea of four teachers with his own tranquilisers at a primary school where he worked as a janitor. Last year he was sacked from his job as a taxi-driver for assaulting a customer.
Japanese viewers got their first glance of the suspect yesterday evening as he was being moved from police station to prison. Television pictures showed a blank-eyed and haggard man with a bandaged hand, believed to be the result of a self-inflicted injury. Police reported last night that Mr Mamoru has admitted to the killings and said that he deliberately chose the school because it was for well-off children.
"I knew if I killed lots of intelligent kids at an elite school I would definitely get the death penalty," he is reported to have said. "I was fed up with everything."
