Two teenage boys were arrested late Wednesday night for allegedly robbing and murdering a man whose battered body was found in a park in Tokyo's Koto Ward last week, police officials said Thursday. The suspects told investigators last Thursday that they had also mugged other people in the park to gain spending money, the officials said. The suspects have been identified only as a 15-year-old student at a part-time high school in Koto Ward and a 14-year-old enrolled at a municipal junior high school in the same area. According to police, the boys assaulted Shinichi Suzuki, 33, of Ota Ward, at a park on the Yumenoshima man-made island around 11 p.m. last Thursday. They allegedly beat him with a branch and kicked him in the head and abdomen until the victim died of shock from excessive bleeding. They then took the victim's wallet with 8,000 yen in cash in it and ran away, the officials said. Police have learned that several others who were at the park alone late at night have been assaulted. The two boys were interrogated at a local police station following a Jan. 26 attack on a male company employee in the park. They were not arrested at that time. After Suzuki's body was found Friday, police again questioned the 14-year-old boy, and found that bloodstains on his shoes matched the blood type of the victim. When police interrogated the older boy, they both owned up to the killing, the officials said. Police suspect the two had initially targeted people in the park for money and grew increasingly violent. Immediately after Suzuki's body was found, police were unable to identify him. They publicized a photo of the victim captured on a video monitor at the Shin-Kiba subway station, located near the park, after which Suzuki's 70-year-old mother identified him.
