School rebel confesses to second killing

The 14-year-old boy arrested in the beheading of a schoolboy has also confessed to killing one young girl and stabbing another in the western city of Kobe, news reports said yesterday. Police arrested the boy on Saturday after he confessed to killing Jun Hase, 11, and leaving his severed head at a school entrance gate of a junior high school.

Two months earlier, Ayaka Yamashita, 10, was bludgeoned to death in the same neighbourhood, apparently with a steel pipe. Less than an hour later, a nine-year-old girl was stabbed and nearly bled to death.

Hase's severed head was discovered with his eyes gouged out and his mouth split from ear to ear. The suspect told police he targeted the mentally retarded boy because the victim was weaker. AP - Tokyo