TOKYO - The final, chilling posting read, "It's time."
In the hours before a 25-year-old man went on a killing rampage Sunday in Tokyo, he posted a series of messages on an online bulletin board from his cell phone, authorities said Monday.
The alleged attacker, auto parts worker Tomohiro Kato, described his intention to use his vehicle and a knife to kill people in the central Tokyo district of Akihabara, known for its electronics stores and as a magnet for fans of Japanese anime and manga comics.
The first message in the thread, titled "I will kill people in Akihabara," was sent at 5:21 a.m. on Sunday. In ensuing posts, Kato described leaving his home southwest of Tokyo, heading to the city and worrying that rain could hamper his plans. He wrote about arriving in Akihabara at 11:45 a.m. The final post was at 12:10 p.m.
Twenty minutes later, police said, he plowed his two-ton, white rental truck into a crowd of pedestrians before jumping out and stabbing passers-by with a survival knife. Six men and a woman died, aged 19 to 74, were killed and 10 people were injured.
The killings stunned a country that has long had low crime rates but has experienced a series of random stabbings in recent months.
Kato lived alone in a small apartment in the city of Shizuoka. Japanese media reports said he told police he had grown tired of life, "hated the world" and had gone to Akihabara to kill people.
Last week, he lost his temper at the factory where he worked in Shizuoka, company executive Osamu Namai said. "He was screaming that his uniform was missing. When his colleague got a new uniform for him, he had already left and never returned," Namai said.
