SUSONO, Shizuoka -- The man who killed seven people and injured 10 others in a stabbing rampage in Tokyo's Akihabara district on Sunday became furious after his work clothes were missing at the factory he worked at earlier this month, colleagues say.

"My work clothes are missing!" the suspect, 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato, shouted at the Higashi-Fuji factory of Kanto Auto Works, Ltd. at around 6 a.m. on Thursday, shortly before his shift began, prompting a colleague to alert their boss. He had disappeared by the time the boss arrived at the scene.

Later in the day, he put up several messages on a mobile phone site complaining about what happened at the factory.

"When I went to my workplace, I found my work clothes were missing. Does it mean I should quit my job?" one of the entries read.

"I guess the company is happy about expelling me," another messages said.

Investigators suspect that Kato thought that he had been dismissed from the factory.

Kato, registered with a temporary employment agency, was dispatched to the factory on Nov. 14, according to the agency and Naoyuki Hashimoto, 54, the general affairs and public relations manager at Kanto Auto Works.

During a job interview, Kato said he had previously been engaged in assembling automobiles while working at another automobile company as a temporary employee.

He worked hard at Kanto Auto and never took time off except his regular days off, according to colleagues. He earned about 200,000 yen a month. His contract with the automobile firm was to expire on March 31 but it was extended by one year.

Kanto Auto Works planned to reduce the number of its temporary workers from 200 to 50 by the end of this month. However, the employment agency had told him that he could continue to work at the factory.

Kato lived in a one-room apartment that the employment agency rents. He was spotted several times by neighbors coming home at around 11 p.m. Neighbors say he had almost no contact with them and had no trouble with other residents.

Kato graduated from prestigious Aomori Prefectural High School.

An Aomori Municipal Assembly member said Kato had a great education.

"He graduated from prestigious Tsukuda Junior High School, then joined Aomori High School. He was real elite," he said. The daughter of an acquaintance of the assembly member was a classmate of Kato at the junior high and high schools.

However, he failed in the entrance examination of a science and engineering university. After he unsuccessfully sat again for the same university's entrance examination a year later, he entered an automobile vocational school in Shizuoka Prefecture.

In an elementary school yearbook, Kato described himself as "hot-tempered and stubborn."

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