Japan Hunts Down Haiku-Writer Serial Killer

Local police from the tiny rural Japanese village in the Yamaguchi Prefecture are now hunting down a suspected serial killer who also happened to be a prolific "haiku'' poem writer.

The manhunt was alerted after the bodies of five people were discovered in the tiny Japanese mountain village. Three of the bodies were found in two separate fires, contained in houses that were burned to the ground.

Police suspect the culprit is a 63-year-old villager, based on a "haiku'' poem which they found stuck in the latter's home window. The "haiku'' poem read: "Setting a fire - smoke gives delight - to a country fellow.''

A haiku is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five. "They customarily evoke natural phenomena, frequently as a metaphor for human emotions," according to Japan Times.

Autopsies showed that all five dead, in their 70s or 80s, suffered skull fractures. Police suggested they may have been beaten to death with a blunt instrument.

"All of the victims must have been asleep when they were fatally attacked," criminologist Jinsuke Kageyama said. "Even elderly people resist. It would have been difficult to strike them repeatedly only on the head."

Neighbors of the alleged 63-year-old suspect said he hardly mingles with the other people in the small community of just 10 households.

He likewise had a reputation as the village troublemaker, according to Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.