The 15-year-old boy arrested in connection with the slaying of three members of a family of six in Oita Prefecture earlier this month has confessed to breaking into the family's home and stealing money prior to the killing spree, investigative sources said Friday.
The sources said the boy, whose name has not been released because he is a minor, used a stepladder that he carried from his home to enter the house of Kazumasa Iwasaki, 66, and his family in the town of Notsu, just south of the prefectural capital Oita, but left the stepladder behind.
A few days before storming the Iwasaki household on Aug. 14, the youth retrieved the stepladder and dumped it into a nearby river, the sources quoted him as saying. Police have already found the ladder in the river as described by the suspect.
Iwasaki's 66-year-old wife, Sumiko, his daughter, Tomoko, 41, and Tomoko's son, Junya, 13, died from stab wounds in the early morning attack. Iwasaki, a farmer, remains unconscious and in critical condition with severe wounds to the head. Tomoko's 16-year-old daughter, Mai, sustained severe wounds to the back, and her other son, Seiya, 11, to his throat.