The Saitama District Court has agreed to put a Peruvian man, arrested in October in connection with multiple murders, in detention for psychiatric tests for three months through March to see if he can be held criminally responsible, prosecutors said.
During the detention period, the prosecutors will check the mental condition of Vayron Jonathan Nakada Ludena, 30, who allegedly murdered four people and two children in Saitama Prefecture in mid-September.
According to investigative sources, Nakada was acting strangely before the murders, telling a relative that he was "being followed by a man wearing a suit."
He was also quoted as telling investigators after his arrest: "I don't know about it. I don't know why I am here."
The prosecutors submitted a request for the suspect to be mentally examined to the Saitama District Court on Monday. The detention period started Tuesday and runs to March 11.
Nakada was arrested Oct. 8 on suspicion of fatally stabbing Minoru Tasaki, 55, and his wife, Misae, 53, on Sept. 14 in their home in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture.
He was later served with warrants for killing four others in the same city — Miwako Kato, 41, and her two daughters, 7-year-old Haruka and 10-year-old Misaki, as well as Kazuyo Shiraishi, 84. Their bodies were found in their homes Sept. 16.
The police did not initially serve an arrest warrant as Nakada remained unconscious in a hospital after plunging from a second-floor window in Kato's house Sept. 16. He regained consciousness Sept. 24.