Mutsuo Toi cut the electricity line to the village of Kamo on the evening of 20 May, which left the community in darkness. At around 1:30 a.m. on 21 May, he killed his 76-year-old grandmother by decapitating her with an axe. Then he strapped two flashlights to his head and prowled through the village like a youth engaged in "night-crawling" or "Yobai", entering the homes of his neighbours. He killed 29 neighbours and seriously injured three others in about an hour and half using a Browning shotgun, a Japanese sword and an axe. This was almost half of the residents of the small community. At dawn he committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest.
Mutsuo Toi
Mutsuo Toi was born in Okayama Prefecture to well-off parents. His parents died of tuberculosis when he was a baby, so he and his sister were brought up by their grandmother. He was originally outgoing, but at the age of 17 he became socially withdrawn after his sister married in 1934. He was interested in the story of Sada Abe, the prostitute who, in May 1936, strangled her lover then severed his genitals. He had started writing a novel, Yūtokaiōmaru. He took part in "Yobai" or "night-crawling", a rural custom which involved creeping into young women's bedrooms during the night to seek sexual intercourse. From his suicide notes it appears that after May 1937 when he was diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis, the young women in the village rejected his sexual advances.
Suicide notes
Toi left several long notes which revealed that he was concerned about the social impact of his tuberculosis, which in the 1930s was an incurable fatal illness. He felt that his female neighbours became cold towards him once they knew of his illness, and that he was despised as hypersexual, and he also stated in the notes that neighbours insulted and treated him badly after he was found to have tuberculosis. For revenge, he decided to enter their homes and kill them. He waited for the time when the women returned to their houses. The authorities were concerned, and his gun license was revoked. He however prepared swords and guns secretly. He regretted that he would not be able to shoot some people he wanted to, as that would have involved killing people he regarded as innocent. He also wrote that he killed his grandmother because he could not bear leaving her alive to face the shame and social stigma that would be associated with being a "murderer's grandmother".
