Authorities are intensifying their search for a suspect who fatally stabbed a junior high school girl and injured her male classmate at a McDonald’s restaurant in Kitakyushu on Saturday night. Here’s what we know so far.
At around 8 p.m. on Saturday, 15-year-old Saaya Nakashima and another student, also 15, entered the McDonald’s Tokuriki 322 store in Kokuraminami Ward together on their way home after attending a cram school session.
After securing a table, they joined the line at the counter behind two or three other customers.
Surveillance footage shows that shortly after 8:25 p.m., the suspect, armed with a knife, entered the restaurant through an entrance facing a national highway.
Without saying a word, he walked directly to the two teens at the end of the line and lunged at them, stabbing Nakashima in her stomach, then the male student from behind.
The suspect then ran through the same doorway and headed north. According to an analysis of the store’s surveillance cameras, he fled on foot, leading police to suspect that he might be well-acquainted with local geography.
The suspect is described as being a male approximately 40 years old and 170 centimeters tall. He was wearing a gray jacket, black pants and yellowish sandals at the time of the attack.
Staff discovered the injured teens shortly after the incident and called emergency services. Both victims were rushed to a nearby hospital.
Nakashima was declared to have died of blood loss from a deep wound to her abdomen approximately 90 minutes later. The male student sustained a serious injury near his waist but is in stable condition and expected to recover.
“I have no idea who stabbed me,” he told investigators at the time.
Surveillance footage revealed that the attacker spent less than 30 seconds inside the restaurant. The lack of defensive wounds on either victim suggests the attack happened so quickly, the students were unable to react, according to police.
Due to the brevity of the incident, the customers ahead in line of the victims did not witness the stabbing or even see the suspect.
Authorities are analyzing surveillance and dashcam footage from the area in an effort to identify and locate the attacker. Once the injured student’s condition improves, investigators plan to interview him for more details.
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