40-year-old man described as a misfit held in stabbing deaths of five people in Japan
A man suspected of stabbing five people dead at a family home in rural Japan was being quizzed by police yesterday, with reports saying he was a , or social misfit, who lived nearby.
Media descended on the usually quiet island of Awajishima, with helicopters hovering over the farmstead where the five were slain some time before 7am.
Police found the bloodied bodies of a man and a woman, both aged around 80, in the main house on the site. Two unconscious women, aged around 60 and 80, were discovered in another building, while a badly wounded man in his 60s was found outside.
All three were rushed to hospital and were later confirmed dead, police said.
The alarm was raised by a 32-year-old woman who rang police to say that her parents had been stabbed.
Detectives arrested unemployed Tatsuhiko Hirano, 40, a police spokesman said. Local media said Hirano's clothes were spattered with blood and that he admitted to the multiple killing.
A Twitter account that appeared to be run by the suspect had been used over the past month. Tweets included one with the address of the homicides and a map of the scene. Other tweets appeared to be about telepathy and stalking.
Hirano lived in the area with his father and grandmother, Jiji Press reported. Locals told the agency he rarely left his home and had largely been isolated from society since school days.
The phenomenon of so-called - literally "the withdrawn" - rears its head fairly frequently in Japan. Often it applies to maladjusted people in their late teens or early 20s who shut themselves away for years at a time in their parents' homes.
While many eventually emerge, the modern-day hermits continue their behaviour well into adulthood, protected from the pressures of life by their ageing parents.
