The man suspected of murdering five people and torching two homes in a remote mountain community in Yamaguchi Prefecture told police he used a wooden stick to kill them, police said Sunday.
Kosei Homi, 63, who was turned over to prosecutors on Saturday, was taken into custody five days after the bodies of a woman and a couple, all in their 70s, were found in their fire-gutted houses in a hamlet under the administration of the city of Shunan. The bodies of two other seniors were discovered in their intact homes the next morning.
The police had been searching for weapons that Homi might have used in the slayings and other evidence in the mountains where Homi was found, but halted the search Sunday due to the heavy rain. The police hope to resume the search on Monday.