Police on Saturday transferred to prosecutors the case of a 17-year-old boy who was arrested Thursday after spending 16 days on the run after allegedly beating four baseball teammates with a bat and killing his mother.
The boy, a student at Oku High School in Oku, Okayama Prefecture, was sent by Okayama Prefectural Police to the Okayama District Public Prosecutors Office.
The police suspect the boy beat his 42-year-old mother to death at their home after attacking fellow members of the high school baseball team with a metal baseball bat on June 21.
Earlier reports said the boy had been ridiculed or bullied by junior members of the baseball team, apparently because he refused to have his hair cut in the closely cropped style often adopted by high school baseball players.