Suspect may have checked stabbing site beforehand

June 3, 2019

Yokohama--A man looking like the 51-year-old suspected attacker in Tuesday's deadly stabbing rampage near Tokyo was captured by surveillance cameras around the crime site four days before the incident, investigative sources said Monday.

The suspect, Ryuichi Iwasaki, is also believed to have bought four knives in at least two locations, the sources said.

The Kanagawa prefectural police department suspects that Iwasaki may have checked the crime site in advance and procured the knives inconspicuously in preparation for the attack.

On the morning of May 24, a man apparently in his 50s who resembled the suspect was recorded by cameras installed at the Odakyu Line's Yomiuri Land Mae Station, the nearest station to the suspect's home, Noborito Station, close to the attack site, and around the site in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, according to the sources.

The footage suggests that the man went to the crime site around the same time as the incident took place four days later.

In the attack, Iwasaki stabbed 20 people, mostly elementary school children, and killed an 11-year-old girl and a 39-year-old Foreign Ministry official. The suspect slashed himself in the neck and died. Jiji Press