Former classmates and acquaintances of Haruka Kobayashi, who was arrested Monday in connection with the death of a 7-year-old girl in the city of Niigata, have spoken of the positive impressions they had held about the 23 year-old electrical worker.

They all said it was hard to imagine that Kobayashi would be suspected of committing a heinous crime.

Kobayashi's home, where he was living with his family before he was arrested on suspicion of abandoning and damaging the girl's body on May 7, is located only about 100 meters away from where the victim lived, according to investigators. "I didn't have a bad impression of him at all," said a woman in her 70s who lives nearby and has known the suspect's family since his childhood. "I thought he would be the last person to harm a small child."