THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
December 11, 2023 at 16:20 JST
KYOTO--A Ground Self-Defense Force member was arrested in Tokyo on Dec. 10 on suspicion of murdering an 82-year-old man in an apparent random attack in Kyoto, police said.
Yukito Mizushima, 21, is accused of fatally stabbing Yoshijiro Okada at an apartment block where the victim lived in the city’s Higashiyama Ward at 7:55 p.m. on Dec. 3, police said.
The suspect, who lived and worked at the GSDF Vice Camp Hozono in Seika, Kyoto Prefecture, has admitted to the allegations, investigative sources said.
Mizushima said he did not know Okada, and that “it didn’t have to be him,” the sources said. He also said he “would have killed another victim” if he had not been caught.
Okada was found lying and bleeding at the stair landing between the second and third floors of the building.
An autopsy showed that the victim died of blood loss from multiple stabs on his back between 6 and 9 p.m. that day.
Forensic experts are analyzing a kitchen knife with a blade more than 10 centimeters long found in Mizushima’s backpack when police apprehended him in Tokyo’s Minato Ward.
On the day of the attack, neighborhood security cameras captured Mizushima walking away from the crime scene before taking a train, police said.
GSDF officials told Kyoto police on Dec. 4 that Mizushima had been missing since leaving the camp for an outing in the morning of Dec. 3.
(This article was written by Shogo Mitsuzumi, Keitaro Nishizaki and Yumin Seki.)
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A stabbing victim was found on the stair landing between the second and third floors of this apartment block in Kyoto’s Higashiyama Ward on Dec. 3. (Keitaro Nishizaki)
