Knife attacker kills 19 in belief disabled people must be eliminated from Japan

TOKYO, July 26 (Reuters) - One day before he tried to hand a letter to a top Japanese lawmaker offering to kill hundreds of disabled people, the suspect in Japan’s worst mass killing in decades tweeted: “I don’t know if it’s right, but action is the only way.”

Less than six months later, Satoshi Uematsu, 26, was arrested on suspicion of stabbing 19 people to death and wounding dozens of others as they slept at a center for the disabled where he had worked for more than three years until February.

Police have yet to comment on the motive for Tuesday’s killing spree, which has shocked a nation with one of the lowest crime rates in the world and where mass murders are rare.

Information about Uematsu is still emerging, but interviews with neighbors and posts on his Twitter account paint a picture of an outwardly polite young man who became obsessed with the people being cared for at the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility for the mentally and physically disabled in Sagamihara town, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo.

Akihiro Hasegawa, who lived next door for eight years, said he’d noticed nothing strange about Uematsu, a college graduate.

“He always smiled when he greeted me. He was very mannerly and polite. A really nice young man,” Hasegawa, 73, told Reuters.

“It would be easier to understand if there’d been a warning but there were no signs,” said Hasegawa, adding he thought Uematsu’s experiences on the job might have affected his mind.

“We didn’t know the darkness of his heart.”

A Twitter account carrying Uematsu’s name and which domestic media said was used by the suspect indicated he was a fun-loving young man who enjoyed karaoke and beach parties and wanted to quit smoking.

“I’m super happy,” he tweeted on June 29 with photos at what appeared to be a friend’s wedding party.

He was also a fan of a conspiracy theory card game, and posted that he saw hidden messages such as a prediction of Japan’s March 2011 nuclear disaster in the cards.