At least 19 people were killed in a knife attack at a facility for the disabled in Sagamihara, 25 miles southwest of Tokyo, Japan.
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Uematsu worked at the facility from December 2012 until February this year, and Sagamihara’s city authority said local police had questioned him Feb. 19 for telling co-workers that he would “kill the disabled”.
About half a dozen plainclothes police raided Uematsu’s home, as reporters and television cameras stood by. 9 men and 10 women ranging from age 18 to 70 were killed in the attack, making it the deadliest attack in Japan since World War II, CNN reported.
Video footage showed him smiling in a police auto as he was driven away.
After writing the letters, which were given to the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Uematsu voluntarily resigned from his job at the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility in Sagamihara, about 40km south-west of Tokyo.
Reiko Kishi (80), who worked at the home for more than 30 years, said: “Such a crime is unheard of in this peaceful suburban neighbourhood”.
The suspect, identified as Satoshi Uematsu was seen leaving the police station handcuffed and draped with a blue jacket over his head on Tuesday.
Media reports said he was being transferred from a police cell to the nearby city of Yokohama.
The crazed knifeman who hacked 19 people to death at a care home in Japan because he wanted to “get rid of the disabled from this world” is believed to have sent a chilling tweet just minutes after the attack.
Uematsu told police he would kill many severely disabled people if the national government approved such an action, the official told Reuters by phone.
Tatsuhisa Hirosue, an official in the Kanagawa prefecture welfare division, said that the surviving staff, “were working at night and were questioned by police after witnessing graphic violence, which has made them a little emotionally unstable”.
Further details of the attack, including whether the victims were asleep or otherwise helpless, remained unclear Wednesday.
Uematsu was sacked from the facility and admitted into a psychiatric ward in February after informing his coworkers of his plan to euthanize patients living at the center.
He is since said to have detailed how he tied up members of staff up with plastic ties, and deliberately targeted people with such severe disabilities that they were unable to communicate. “After wiping out the 260 people in two facilities, I will turn myself in”, the letter goes on.
Kanagawa Gov. Yuji Kuroiwa apologized for having failed to act on the warning signs.
The police are investigating possible motives for the crime.
Mass killings are rare in Japan and because of the country’s extremely strict gun control laws, any attacker usually resorts to stabbings. Seven people were killed in 2008 by a man who slammed a truck into a crowd in central Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district and then stabbed passers-by.
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Eight children were stabbed to death at their school in Osaka by a former janitor in 2001.
