Starting his spree roughly when he was in high school, Kira is a serial killer who originally murdered his victims by stabbing them so viciously that they were left with horrific back wounds (their hideous nature is implied by the fact that the reader is never actually shown Reimi's wound, despite all the instances of blood and gore that Araki had drawn up to that point). His first victims were Reimi Sugimoto and her entire family, including their dog Arnold.