The 19-year old first-year student at Nagoya University, who apparently has an unhealthy fascination with grisly murders, has admitted to killing the elderly woman, saying she “just wanted to kill someone,” according to the Aichi prefecture police. The student is suspected of murdering Tomoko Mori on December 7, 2014, by repeatedly hitting her with an ax and then strangling her “because she wasn’t completely dead,” the Asahi Shimbun said.
Mori’s body was found in the suspect’s apartment on January 27 at 9:40 a.m. The student took police to the scene. An ax, believed to be the weapon, was found in a bag in the apartment. According to police, the student killed Mori in one part of the apartment and then moved the body to the bathroom, placing it in the bathtub. She then left the apartment and went to her parent’s home in Miyagi Prefecture.
Investigators quoted the suspect as saying, “I hit her with an ax, but when I saw that she was not completely dead, I strangled her with a scarf. I have just wanted to kill someone since childhood. It could have been anybody.”
The two apparently became acquainted after Mori had encouraged the young woman to join a Christian-related religious group. They visited the group on Dec. 7. and apparently, Mori went with the student back to her apartment. Later that same evening, Mori’s husband reported to police his wife had not come home at her scheduled time. The police focused on the student after finding out from witnesses she and Mori were seen together on Dec. 7.
The student’s Twitter account tells us more about the student, who lived by herself in the apartment. The account was set up in April 2014, around the time she entered the University. On May 12, she allegedly posted this message: “I don’t ‘want to die,’ but I ‘feel like seeing what it is like to die.’ There are no people I want to kill, but there are many who I ‘feel like killing.’”
Other tweets suggest she had become fascinated with violent crimes. Tweets she sent referencing past violent crimes were found in the account, including the “11-year-old girl accused of slaying a classmate in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, in 2004, and a boy who brutally killed two other children in Kobe in 1997.” One tweet she sent out said, “I like him very much.”
Another tweet the student sent celebrated the birthday of mass-murderer Mamoru Takuma who killed eight children at the Ikeda Elementary School in June 2001. Takuma was executed in 2004. Most telling is the tweet that the student sent out on Dec. 7. It said; “I made it at last.”
Students at the University who knew the suspect described her as “boyish-looking and cheerful” but they also claim she had an “odd side.” Under Japanese law, the suspect is considered a minor and her name will not be released. Crime levels are low in Japan, but when a crime does occur, it makes the headlines, especially when it is as lurid as this crime.