Peruvian held after six found slain

Police who stopped Jonathan Nakada on Sunday must have thought that he was just a confused, homeless foreigner, mumbling to himself as he roamed the streets of Kumagaya, a commuter town north of Tokyo.

They had been alerted after Nakada, 30, was seen wandering aimlessly, and speaking disjointedly with a smattering of Japanese.

When he was taken to the station, he was asked a few questions but apparently said that he wanted to go back to Peru, where he had been born. When he asked to step outside for a cigarette, police agreed. He did not come back.

By the time officers saw him again, six people, including two children, had been stabbed to death and he was the chief suspect.

By yesterday, Nakada was in a critical condition with a fractured skull after slashing his wrists and falling from the second-floor window of a house he had broken into, armed with a knife.

On Monday, police had found the bodies of Minoru Tasaki, 55, and his wife Misae, 53, who had bled to death.

Officers later discovered the body of Kazuyo Shiraishi, 84, which had been wrapped in cloth and dumped in her bath. All had been stabbed repeatedly and all lived in the same area.

Police said that while searching Shiraishi’s home they saw a man with a knife peering from a window of a neighbouring apartment. Officers immediately burst into the home and told the man, now known to be Nakada, to put down the knife.

He remained seated on the ledge, slashed both his wrists, dropped the knife and fell backwards from the window.

Inside two cupboards in the home were the bodies of Miwako Kato, 41, and her two daughters, Misaki, 10, and Haruka, 7.

Prints from the same shoes have been found at all the crime scenes.

Police said Nakada, 30, was an unemployed Peruvian who had lived in Japan for 10 years. He had spent his time moving around the Kanto region, which covers Tokyo and its neighbouring prefectures.

Peruvians of Japanese ancestry – which his name suggests he is – receive preferential treatment from the immigration authorities.

Almost 600 police have been mobilised to check houses in the area for other potential victims.

In particular, they are searching homes occupied by single and elderly people.

The head of Japan’s national police agency, Masahito Kanetaka, admitted that the failure to keep track of Nakada after his questioning on Sunday had ‘‘grave consequences’’, but said that the police could not detain him because there was no evidence at that time that he had been involved in any crime.

The Times