THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
January 26, 2025 at 14:53 JST
NAGANO--A 46-year-old unemployed man was arrested Jan. 26 in connection with a suspected random stabbing attack outside a major rail station in central Japan that left one person dead and two others injured.
Nagano prefectural police identified the suspect as city resident Yusuke Yaguchi and said he appeared to be living alone.
He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder of a woman who sustained a minor back injury in the attack.
The stabbings occurred around 8:05 p.m. near a bus terminal outside JR Nagano Station on Jan. 22.
The woman, 46, suffered an injury that requires one week of treatment.
Yaguchi has remained silent during questioning, police said.
Security camera footage from the scene released after the incident showed a middle-aged man wearing glasses loitering for about an hour around the station.
In releasing the images, the police had asked for information from the public.
Yaguchi was arrested at his home on the morning of Jan. 26, police said.
Investigators suspect that Yaguchi attacked the victims at random.
Hiroyoshi Maruyama, a 49-year-old company employee who lived in Nagano, died, while a 37-year-old company employee, also a Nagano resident, was injured.
Police established a toll-free telephone number on Jan. 23 and received about 240 calls by the morning of Jan. 25.
At a news conference on Jan. 26, Toshifumi Matsushima, who heads the Nagano Chuo Police Station, expressed appreciation for information police received from members of the public.
“The best thing is that children can now feel safe to go to school,” Matsushima said, referring to the roughly 2,000 to 2,800 children who did not go to school on Jan. 23-24.
Satoshi Yoshizawa, chief of the criminal investigation department with the prefectural police, said investigators sought to restore safety and security in Nagano Prefecture as soon as possible.
(This article was written by Fumiko Takaki and Ryo Suganuma.)
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Yusuke Yaguchi is escorted into the Nagano Chuo Police Station in Nagano on Jan. 26. (Provided by Asahi Broadcasting Nagano Co.)
