Man jailed for murder arrested again, evidence of murder of another girl

A man serving a life sentence for killing a girl in western Japan two decades ago was arrested Thursday for an alleged stabbing in 2006, while hinting that he was involved in the high-profile murder of another girl the following year was involved.

The arrest of 45-year-old Kunihiko Katsuta may mark a new phase in the investigation into the fatal knife attack on seven-year-old Yuzuki Unose in Kakogawa, Hyogo Prefecture in 2007, which local police are struggling to solve.

Katsuta was sentenced to an indefinite prison sentence by the Okayama District Court in 2022 for stabbing nine-year-old Yukiko Tsutsushio in Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture, near Hyogo, in 2004.

Investigators’ sources said his possible involvement in other attacks on girls, including the 2007 case, became clear as investigators continued to question him behind bars.

On Thursday, Katsuta was arrested for allegedly trying to kill a girl, an elementary school fourth-grader, by stabbing her in the chest on a street in Tatsuno, Hyogo Prefecture, in 2006.

The sources said she was attacked on her way home from a cram school and footage from surveillance cameras near the site showed a man fleeing the scene with a backpack.

In the 2007 case, Yuzuki, a second-grade elementary school student, was stabbed in the chest and stomach outside her home after returning from a nearby park.

At the time of his arrest in the Tsuyama case in 2018, Katsuta was already serving a prison sentence for stabbing a middle school student in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture in 2015. He had also previously been charged with arbitrary attacks on other girls there prefecture.

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