Photo/Illutration Prayers and flowers are offered to Miki Kawano, victim of a Jan. 16 stabbing attack in front of JR Hakata Station in Fukuoka, on Feb. 8. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

FUKUOKA—A man accused of stalking and stabbing to death a former girlfriend on a sidewalk said he just happened to meet her that day and was carrying a knife for self-defense.

“My anger ran out of control,” Susumu Terauchi, 31, said in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun at the Fukuoka Detention House.

According to the indictment, Terauchi murdered Miki Kawano, 38, with a knife near JR Hakata Station on Jan. 16.

In a series of interviews, Terauchi said he “ran across (Kawano) by chance” and he had a knife “for self-defense.”

Terauchi had been issued a restraining order to stay away from Kawano based on the stalker regulation law.

He said he thought, “There’s no way I’m a stalker,” when he received the restraining order.

When asked why he was in an area close to Kawano’s workplace on the day of the attack, he said: “This is not her city. Why would I have to care?”

Masayuki Kiriu, a criminal psychology professor at Toyo University, said about Terauchi’s comments: “He appears to be full of himself, and he didn’t take the restraining order seriously. I sense a form of behavior unique to a stalker.”

Masaru Wakasa, a lawyer and former prosecutor, said Terauchi’s “self-defense” claim could be a key part of the trial.

“In the trial, whether the crime was premeditated or not will be a point of dispute, as well as the credibility of his comment.”

Wakasa said that when Terauchi decided to kill Kawano will be carefully addressed at the trial through security camera footage and an analysis of his whereabouts on the day of the attack.

(This article was written by Koki Furuhata and Yuka Suzuki.)

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