Stabbing suspect’s home searched

Uematsu broke into the Tsukui Yamayuri-en facility by shattering a window at 2:10 a.m., according to a prefectural health official and then set about slashing the residents’ throats.

Sagamihara fire department official Kunio Takano said the dead were 10 women and nine men, ranging in age from 19 to 70. All those killed were residents, said Tatsuhisa Hirosue, another Kanagawa welfare division official.

Further details of the attack, including whether the victims were asleep or otherwise helpless, remained unclear Wednesday.

In February, Uematsu tried to hand deliver a letter to Parliament’s lower house speaker that demanded all disabled people be put to death through “a world that allows for mercy killing,” Japanese media reported.

Uematsu boasted in the letter that he had the ability to kill 470 disabled people in what he called “a revolution,” and outlined an attack on two facilities, after which he said he would turn himself in.

“My reasoning is that I may be able to revitalize the world economy and I thought it may be possible to prevent World War III,” the letter said.