The initial manhunt for a 17-year-old boy who rode off on a bike after allegedly beating four baseball teammates with a bat and bludgeoning his mother to death last month was held up because police had been instructed to look for a boy in a school uniform, police said Wednesday.
Police were sent to search for a boy in a uniform, but investigators found the boy's bloodstained uniform in his home later on the day of the attack, the sources said.
This initial confusion over the boy's appearance is one reason why he was able to remain on the run for 16 days, they reckoned.
The boy was arrested last Thursday in Akita Prefecture, more than 1,000 km from his Okayama home. At the time of his arrest, he was also carrying a diary, in which he wrote about his journey.
The diary shows that from Okayama, the youth traveled to Hyogo Prefecture and then to the Sea of Japan coast. From there, he stole several bikes to make his way up the coast to Akita Prefecture.
Ushimado police alleged that the boy hit fellow members of his high school baseball team with a metal baseball bat on June 21 at around 4:35 p.m. and then went home and killed his 42-year-old mother.
About an hour after the school assaults, the boy's mother was found beaten to death at the family's home in Osafune, some 6 km from the school.
Prefectural police criticized the local police's slow investigation process, saying there was a "big loss" of time.
The boy, whose name is being withheld because he is a minor, is a student at Oku High School in Oku, Okayama Prefecture. He was arrested Thursday in Akita Prefecture and sent to prosecutors Saturday.