OSAKA (Kyodo) A man has admitted torching an Osaka pachinko parlor, telling investigators he wanted to "kill many people at once," sources close to police said Tuesday.
The blaze Sunday left four people dead and 19 injured.
Sunao Takami, 41, who lives near the parlor and was arrested Monday, said he "didn't care who might die."
Osaka police said Takami, a resident of Konohana Ward, told them he felt desperate about his life and he just wanted to kill someone.
"I was out of work, had no money and hated my life, and then I got the idea to kill anyone, like a random killer, and started a fire at a place where there were a lot of people," Takami allegedly said.
He reportedly owes between ¥2 million and ¥3 million in consumer loans.
He resorted to arson because he felt it "would be difficult to stab people to death by using a knife," one of the sources quoted him as saying.
Takami's only link with the parlor is apparently that he lives nearby and visited it several times, but he had no problems with the establishment or its customers, the sources said.
The blaze destroyed the entire parlor on the first floor of a six-story commercial building on a busy street.
The four victims have been identified as customers Kenichiro Nakama, 69, Yaeno Takasu, 62 and Haruko Goto, 72, and employee Mai Nobuhara, 20.
After starting the fire, Takami went home, changed clothes and took a train to JR Okayama Station, where he stayed at a nearby business hotel under a false name, the police said.