Overview
- A bloodied woman was found unconscious in a Takasaki parking lot and later died at hospital, and local police are treating the case as a homicide after finding a blood-stained, knife-like object and multiple stab wounds to her neck.
- Investigators say a nearby 110 call reported a quarrel before the Takasaki discovery and that a man who was with the woman later drove her car and died in a single-vehicle crash in Saitama, leading police to treat him as someone who knew the circumstances.
- Forensics teams are examining the suspected weapon, surveillance footage and dispatch and phone records to establish the timeline and who was present at the Takasaki scene.
- In Kobe, police found a dismembered male body in a freezer inside an apartment that forensic work links to a death around December 2011, and investigators arrested the victim’s ex-wife on a corpse-abandonment charge after finding bloodstains in the room.
- Hyogo police have sent the ex-wife to prosecutors and are probing possible murder and dismemberment despite the years since the death, while authorities review why an abandonment charge was pursued given statutory time limits.