Japanese pensioner blows himself up in a park
Toshikatsu Kurihara, 72, was found with burns in Utsunomiya Joshi Park after police received a call at around 11:40 a.m. saying a person was engulfed in flames following the sound of a blast, Kyodo reports.
The police suspect that Kurihara, who lived in Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, killed himself as a suicide note bearing his name was found in a sock he was wearing.
"I pay with my life," the note said, expressing anxieties related to family matters.
Mitsuo Tamura, 64, and Yoshinobu Hiratsuka, 58, were seriously injured, and a 14-year-old male local junior high school student sustained a minor injury.
The park is located about 500 meters southeast of Tobu Utsunomiya Station.
Shortly before that incident, several cars, including Kurihara's, were found burning in a nearby parking lot at around 11:30 a.m., following reports of blasts there. No one was injured in those fires.
Kurihara's house in the city was also destroyed by fire on Sunday morning. Kurihara, a former Ground Self-Defense Force official, had lived in the house alone, according to people in the neighborhood.
The police are investigating the association among all those incidents.
Source: Kyodo