KyoAni Attack Article Found at Home of Osaka Arson Suspect

December 25 2021

From Jiji Press

Content is altered to withhold the suspect’s name

OSAKA – Newspapers, including one reporting on the July 2019 deadly arson attack on a studio of Kyoto Animation Co., have been found at a home where the suspect in Friday’s arson attack on a building in the city of Osaka, western Japan, was believed to have been living, investigative sources said Tuesday. 

The Osaka prefectural police department believes that the suspect, 61, had an extremely strong interest in arson incidents such as the attack on the studio of the anime production company, known as KyoAni, that left 36 people dead. The police also suspect that the suspect, for the Osaka building attack, may have copied the idea of using gasoline from the attack on the KyoAni studio in the city of Kyoto, also western in Japan.

The Osaka police said Tuesday that a woman apparently in her 20s has been confirmed dead, with the death toll in the Osaka building fire rising to 25. Twenty-four of the victims have been confirmed to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The suspect was injured in the fire and remains in critical condition.

The suspect allegedly started the fire at a mental health clinic on the fourth floor of the eight-story building in Kita Ward in the Osaka Prefecture capital. The fire burned an area of about 25 square meters.

About 30 minutes before the fire, a minor fire occurred at the three-story house in the city’s Nishiyodogawa Ward, where the suspect, a patient of the clinic, is believed to have lived, according to the sources.