TOKYO (AP) - A 4-year-old boy is kidnapped while his parents shop nearby and taken to a seven-story parking garage. There, he is stripped naked, stabbed, possibly molested, and pushed off a roof.
Vicious and cold-blooded, the crime dominated Japan's attention for more than a week. Now, a nation that prides itself on law and order is trying to accept a bigger shock: Police say the killer is a 12-year-old boy.
``Our society has produced a 12-year-old murderer. We must face this fact,'' the country's largest newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun, said Thursday.
The crime has already renewed a debate in this country over whether children who commit heinous crimes should face tougher punishment, and perhaps even the death penalty.
Police in the southern city of Nagasaki took the boy into custody - he is too young to be arrested or charged - on Wednesday after studying security camera footage that allegedly showed him leading victim Shun Tanemoto through a downtown shopping arcade near the parking garage.
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/crim...&w=APO&coview=
Vicious and cold-blooded, the crime dominated Japan's attention for more than a week. Now, a nation that prides itself on law and order is trying to accept a bigger shock: Police say the killer is a 12-year-old boy.
``Our society has produced a 12-year-old murderer. We must face this fact,'' the country's largest newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun, said Thursday.
The crime has already renewed a debate in this country over whether children who commit heinous crimes should face tougher punishment, and perhaps even the death penalty.
Police in the southern city of Nagasaki took the boy into custody - he is too young to be arrested or charged - on Wednesday after studying security camera footage that allegedly showed him leading victim Shun Tanemoto through a downtown shopping arcade near the parking garage.
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/crim...&w=APO&coview=
