On the morning of Feb. 20, police were summoned to the grassy, elevated bank of the Tama River, which forms the boundary between Tokyo and Kawasaki. They found the naked body of 13-year-old junior high school student Ryota Uemura, dead of multiple stab wounds. The same morning, the partly burned remnants of Uemura's clothing were found in a nearby park toilet, in what appeared to be an effort to destroy evidence. The boy's cellphone was missing.
The shocking incident led several tabloids to go so far as to suggest that, considering recent events in the Middle East, Uemura's killers may have been inspired by gruesome videos of beheadings posted on the Internet, transforming them into "Islamic State wannabes." Indeed, if accounts that Uemura's neck was slashed from behind while he was in a kneeling position are factual, this premise cannot entirely be ruled out.
Before the police announced the arrest of three older boys, who were first incorrectly identified as high school students, their names, addresses and other personal information had gone viral on social media, and a horde of reporters descended on the mostly blue-collar bedroom town of Kawasaki in the hunt for details.