Captured Bandit’s Press Conference

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27752, 1 September 1955, Page 13

Captured Bandit’s Press Conference

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) _ . TOKYO, Aug. 30. Police in Osaka today held a gunman who calmly told a press conference after his arrest:

“My home is in Kansai and my occupation is robbery,” he said. Yesterday, he killed a policeman, robbed a bank, commandeered a taxi, and when he was finished with the vehicle, shot and killed the driver. In a gunfight with the police during his attempted getaway, he seriously injured another policeman. He was captured when he ran out of ammunition.

The man confessed several earlier crimes, including an exploit in 1952 when he herded staff and customers of a bank into the vault and made off with 1,000,060 yen. the police said. He told the press he read Edgar Allan Poe and Sherlock Holmes. He preferred to commit crimes on dates with the number six in them, but yesterday had deviated from this custom. He said he had killed another taxidriver on another occasion, and after that “I had a nervous breakdown and had to take sleeping pills.” He said that he had wanted yesterday to commit “the perfect crime.” But things went wrong. The police recovered yesterday’s stolen money intact—s,ooo,ooo yen.