OKYO - A teenage boy carrying a severed head walked into a
Japanese police station Tuesday saying he killed his mother, the
latest in a series of grisly dismemberments that have horrified a
nation renowned for its low crime rate.
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The 17-year-old suspect led officers to his house in northern
Fukushima prefecture (state) and pointed out his headless mother on
her futon mattress, with a frank, "It's in here," Kyodo News
reported.
He told police he beheaded his mother on the eve of her 47th
birthday while she slept, and added, "It didn't matter who I
killed," Kyodo reported. Police confirmed the arrest.
Japan has long prided itself on safe streets and low incidents of
violent crime. But the latest killing triggered soul searching
about what some worry is a disturbing new trend particularly with
its mix of youthful aggression and icy remorselessness.
"If true, it's horrifying," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa
Shiozaki said.
Last year, a jobless man allegedly cut up his mother and entombed
her body parts in concrete-filled buckets left abandoned in a
yard.
In January, Tokyo was put on edge when a woman confessed to
dismembering her husband with a saw and dumping the parts around
the capital.
Then just weeks ago, the nation was riveted by a high-profile
verdict in the death of a British bar hostess whose body was also
dismembered and stashed in a seaside cave.
While dismemberment crimes are not unique to Japan, experts say
such cases are on the rise as the country grapples with the fallout
of a decade of economic malaise. Alienation and a trend toward
objectifying fellow humans are also fueling the violence.
"There have been a high number of incidents involving dismembered
bodies and I certainly think there is a chain reaction going on,"
said Susumu Oda, an expert in criminal psychology at Japan's
Tezukayamagakuin University.
Tuesday's case recalls a 1997 slaying in which a 14-year-old boy
beheaded an 11-year-old and left the head at a school gate with a
sinister note stuffed in the mouth.
That case spurred widespread debate about tougher laws against
juvenile offenders.
Dismemberments made headlines again last year when a man in western
Japan reportedly cut up his mother's body and encased the remains
in concrete buckets.
The 37-year-old suspect also allegedly roasted some of the parts on
an electric grill before throwing them in the garbage, apparently
to delay decomposition and hide the odor.
In the January case, a woman confessed to bludgeoning her husband
with a wine bottle, sawing the corpse in pieces and dumping his
body parts around Tokyo.
The confession ended a murder mystery that began the previous month
when a man's torso was found in a garbage bag on a Tokyo
street.
The man's legs were later found at a separate location in Tokyo and
his head was discovered in a suburban park weeks later. The woman
told police that her husband had physically and emotionally abused
her, local media reported.
Late last month, a serial rapist was sentenced to life in prison
for nine attacks, but was cleared of raping and dismembering a
British woman after a six-year trial that detailed one of Japan's
most disturbing sex crimes.
The British victim, Lucie Blackman, worked at a hostess bar
frequented by the suspect, and her body was discovered in a cave
near his house her head also encased in concrete. While the
suspect was convicted on other charges, the court said there was no
solid evidence linking him to the Briton's death.
While such gruesome killings have outraged the nation, some experts
caution that the dismembering of victims is not always a symptom of
deeper social disfunction.
"In many cases, they killed in a desperate situation and carried or
hid the body by dismembering it to avoid being caught for
homicide," said Yoshikazu Yuuma, an expert in criminal psychology
at Saitama Institute of Technology outside Tokyo.
Sick bastard 
