Who murdered 19 disabled patients

Satoshi Uematsu went from helping to care for vulnerable adults to mercilessly killing them

It was a short and familiar car ride for Satoshi Uematsu from his home to a care facility where he’d spent many hours as a caretaker for the disabled residents. It was the early hours of July 26, 2016, and the roads would have been eerily quiet. No one would have noticed Uematsu, then 26, leaving his home in Sagamihara, a small town near Tokyo, Japan.

His parents had moved out a few months earlier. Uematsu’s neighbours might have seen his trademark blond hair as he drove away and wondered where the friendly, polite young man was going. They would have been surprised to hear he was going to the care home – after all, he didn’t work there any more.

The Tsukui Yamayuri En residential facility, or Tsukui Lily Garden, was located in almost eight acres of remote woodland and boasted a swimming pool, a gym and medical centre. It was home to around 150 patients aged 19 to 75. They had a variety of mental and physical disabilities, and some were bedridden.

Uematsu’s dad was a school art teacher, and he’d tried to follow in his footsteps and trained to be a teacher, too. But he had ended up working at the care facility where he’d stayed for more than three years until leaving in February 2016.

In Japanese culture, there is still often stigma around having a disabled family member and so they are sent to live in welfare facilities to be cared for by staff. It continues to be a hot debate in the very private country, where disabled people aren’t commonly visible.

Uematsu wanted to do something about the position of disabled people in society and, as he parked at his former workplace and carried a bag towards the building, he put his shocking plan into action. Using a hammer, he broke a window and entered the facility. When Uematsu came across a staff member, he tied them up and stole their keys.

He continued to restrain any staff he encountered – once they saw a knife in his hand, they knew they couldn’t fight back. It was the middle of the night and only nine staff were on duty. Uematsu then headed towards the rooms where the patients were sleeping. Using one of the knives he’d taken with him, he started on his disabled victims – one after the other. He continued to other floors, leaving the dead in his wake. Stabbing at their necks, it was methodical, relentless and brutal. Uematsu had strong feelings about the disabled – he believed they had no place in the world and should ‘disappear’. When staff members realised what was happening, they called police at around 2.30am. By the time they arrived, Uematsu had gone. Security cameras caught him leaving at 2.50am.

It was a bloodbath and 29 ambulances rushed to the scene. There were 19 dead, aged between 19 and 70. 10 women and nine men.There were 26 more seriously injured. Uematsu had slipped the net and a very dangerous man was on the loose, but he soon handed himself into a local police station with a bag full of bloodstained knives and tools.

‘I did it,’ he was quoted as telling police officers at around 3am.

‘It is better that disabled people disappear,’ he added.

The young man wasn’t looking to get away with the killings. In fact, Uematsu had even told the authorities what he had in mind, and, in his eyes, the attack had proved to be a huge success. Just a few months earlier, Uematsu