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Masahiro
KANAGAWA
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Stabbing spree
Number of victims: 2
Date of murder: March 19/23, 2008
Date of arrest:
March 23, 2008
Date of birth: 1983
Victim profile:
Yoshikazu Miura, 72
/
Takahiro Yamagami, a 27
Method of murder: Stabbing
with knife
Location: Tsuchiura,
Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
Status:
Sentenced to death on December 18, 2009
Masahiro Kanagawa(金川
真大,Kanagawa Masahiro, born 1983) is a Japanese man who went
on a stabbing spree in the city of Tsuchiura on March 23, 2008, which
left a 27-year-old man dead and seven others wounded. Police arrested
Kanagawa, then 24, who was wanted in an earlier slaying of a 72-year-old
man. The man told the investigators that he "just wanted to kill
anyone".
The suspect, who carried two knives, stabbed the
27-year-old man to death and hurt at least seven others, while the
victims were walking along a short hallway connecting a railway
station. The 27-year-old died as he was being rushed to a nearby
hospital.
Police said that Kanagawa liked games and that he
hid out in Akihabara while escaping. A part of mass media claimed that
he murdered people under the influence of Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword.
He reportedly sought capital punishment. Tomohiro Kato, who
committed the Akihabara massacre, is alleged to have posted a message
which referred to his case.
The Mito District Court sentenced him to death on
December 18, 2009.
Japanese man
sentenced to death for stabbing spree
AsiaOne.com
Fri, Dec 18, 2009
TOKYO, Dec 18, 2009 (AFP) - A Japanese man was
sentenced to death Friday for killing two people and wounding seven in
knife attacks last year.
Masahiro Kanagawa, 26, stabbed to death one man and
days later claimed his other victims in a knifing spree outside a
shopping centre near Tokyo.
Kanagawa said he wanted to be executed for his
crimes.
"The crime is evil... he killed and injured other
people because he wanted to die," said Mito District Court presiding
judge Shinichi Suzushima, according to a public broadcast report.
The judge said the death penalty, demanded by
prosecutors, was "unavoidable" after ruling that Kanagawa was mentally
fit.
The defendant had pleaded guilty to murder and
other charges and told the court he welcomed the death penalty.
Kanagawa was put on the police most wanted list
over the murder of a man in Tsuchiura, east of Tokyo, in March 2008.
Four days later he went on a stabbing spree outside
a shopping mall, killing another man and injuring seven others. The
victims were strangers to him.
Japan, which executed seven convicts this year, is
the only major industrial nation other than the United States to
impose the death penalty. Capital punishment is overwhelmingly
supported by the public in Japan, which has one of the world's lowest
crime rates.
Suspect in stabbing spree sought death sentence
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
April 14, 2008
MITO, Ibaraki Prefecture--An unemployed man was
rearrested Sunday over a stabbing rampage last month that was
apparently committed in connection with the suspect's own death wish,
police said.
Ibaraki prefectural police rearrested Masahiro
Kanagawa, 24, on Sunday on suspicion of murdering a company employee
and attempting to murder seven others in and around JR Arakawaoki
Station in Tsuchiura last month.
Kanagawa had already been arrested over a separate
murder four days before the March 23 stabbing spree.
"I couldn't kill myself because it would be too
painful," police quoted Kanagawa as saying. "I thought that I could
receive the death sentence if I murdered a number of people."
According to the investigation, Kanagawa fatally
stabbed Takahiro Yamagami, a 27-year-old employee, in the neck with a
kitchen knife at a supermarket around 11 a.m. on March 23. The
supermarket is adjacent to Arakawaoki Station.
Kanagawa also attempted to murder seven others in
and around the station by stabbing at their necks and shoulders,
police said.
Despite a team of plainclothes investigators on the
lookout for Kanagawa, he arrived at the station by train unnoticed and
then committed the stabbing spree with a clear intent to kill, police
said.
"(When I arrived,) I thought that I would kill
seven or eight people," Kanagawa has told police.
Police had been searching for Kanagawa after
Yoshikazu Miura, 72, was stabbed in front of his house in Tsuchiura on
March 19. Kanagawa became a suspect after his bicycle was found near
the scene.
Kanagawa, who has admitted he killed Miura, did not
know the elderly man.
According to police, Kanagawa also considered
killing his younger sister or attacking a local elementary school he
had attended.
Kanagawa quit his part-time job at a convenience
store in January. He then bought a kitchen knife and a survival knife,
and wrote "death" on a wall in his room with a red pen.
The Mito District Public Prosecutors Office
conducted a basic examination on Kanagawa's mental condition and found
that he could be held responsible for his actions.
Stabbing spree kills one, injures seven
Wanted man goes wild at mall in Ibaraki
The Japan Times
Monday, March 24, 2008
MITO, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) A man wanted by police
for murder went on a stabbing spree outside a shopping mall in
Tsuchiura, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Sunday, killing one man and injuring
seven other people, police said.
Ibaraki Prefectural Police arrested
Masahiro Kanagawa, 24, near the scene shortly after the attack.
Kanagawa had been placed on the wanted list Friday on suspicion of
fatally stabbing 72-year-old Tsuchiura resident Yoshikazu Miura on
Wednesday. Kanagawa was initially arrested on suspicion of murdering
Miura.
The police said they will pursue
charges of murder and attempted murder in connection with the eight
stabbings, which took place in the area around JR Arakawaoki Station
on the Joban Line.
Among the victims of Sunday's rampage
was 27-year-old Takahiro Yamakami of Ami, who died after being taken
to a hospital.
The other seven include a 62-year-old
woman and an 18-year-old male student who were seriously wounded, and
three other men and a woman between 16 and 60, including a 29-year-old
police officer from Tsuchiura police station, whose wounds are not
life-threatening.
The police received a call about the
stabbing spree at around 11 a.m. and another one from Kanagawa himself,
who was calling from an unmanned police box.
"I did it," he told them.
Officers overpowered Kanagawa in
front of the police box, which is about 200 meters from the train
station. He was armed with a kitchen knife and a survival knife.
The suspect told investigators after
his arrest that he "wanted to kill people," and that he didn't care
who they were.
The rampage took place even though
eight police officers had been posted around the station following
Wednesday's murder, the police said, expressing regret for failing to
prevent the attack.
According to police and witnesses,
Kanagawa stabbed five people near the station's ticket gate while
walking from the west exit to the east exit, which leads to a narrow
corridor to the mall. He then attacked two more on the path before
fatally stabbing Yamakami just outside the entrance.
"I saw a young man collapsed, with a
pool of blood around his head," said the manager of a nearby cell
phone shop "I can't believe this is happening in such a quiet town,"
he said.
A female employee at a nearby beauty
salon said: "Four or five ambulances were here. I don't know what's
going on here."
In Wednesday's slaying, Miura was
allegedly stabbed once in the neck in front his house and died later
in a hospital, the police said.
The police put Kanagawa on the wanted
list Friday after discovering his bicycle at the crime scene and
traces of Miura's blood on clothes seized from his home.
Police described Kanagawa as an
lonely, unemployed man who likes games and is not good at
communicating with others. The day after he was put on the wanted list,
Kanagawa made a trip to Tokyo's electronics and game mecca of
Akihabara, police said.
He lives with his parents, two
sisters and a brother in Tsuchiura, they said. One of his schoolmates
said Kanagawa didn't have many friends and did not go out very often
and would suddenly get angry after losing games.
He worked at a local convenience
store sometimes, but didn't have many other jobs, he said.
