All nine victims identified in Zama incident

November 10, 2017

TOKYO- All victims have now been identified in a case where dismembered bodies of nine people were found at an apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, police said early Friday.

In the case, Takahiro Shiraishi, a 27-year-old resident of the apartment, has been arrested on suspicion of body abandonment. As Shiraishi has admitted that he killed all nine people, including three high school students, the investigative headquarters of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department, plans to serve a fresh arrest warrant to him, for murdering the nine.

The police will work on uncovering the whole truth of the case, including details of Shiraishi's motive.

The nine victims, aged between 15 and 26, were one man and eight women from Tokyo and four other prefectures. The investigative headquarters earlier this week announced the identity of one of them--Aiko Tamura, a 23-year-old woman from Hachioji, Tokyo.

The other eight were now identified as Akari Suda, 17, from the city of Fukushima, Kureha Ishihara, 15, from Oura, Gunma Prefecture, Natsumi Kubo, 17, from the city of Saitama, Hinako Sarashina, 19, from Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, Hitomi Fujima, 26, from Kasukabe, Saitama, Mizuki Miura, 21, from Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, Shogo Nishinaka, 20, from Yokosuka, Kanagawa, and Kazumi Maruyama, 25, from Yokohama, Kanagawa, according to the headquarters.

The three high school students were Ishihara, Kubo and Suda, who were in the first, second and third year at their respective schools. Sarashina was a second-year university student. The only male victim was Nishinaka.

Shiraishi has told the police that he killed the nine people at his studio apartment. He is believed to have strangled one or more of the victims with a rope using the handrail of the attic in the apartment.

Shiraishi is suspected of cutting up their bodies in the apartment's bathroom and put dismembered bodies in cooler and other boxes in the apartment.

In its victim identification work, the investigative headquarters used credit cards discovered at the Zama apartment and location information of victims' mobile phones. DNA samples of the victims were checked against those collected from their relatives.

The first victim is believed to have been Miura, who went missing on Aug. 22 or later.

Then, Ishihara lost contact after she left Katase-Enoshima Station on Odakyu Electric Railway Co.'s <9007> Odakyu Enoshima Line in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, on Aug. 28. Nishinaka, an acquaintance of Miura, went unaccounted for on Aug. 29. The other six victims went missing later.

Shiraishi has had contact with women with suicidal thoughts through Twitter to get them into his apartment.

The crime came to light on Oct. 30, when dismembered bodies were found at the apartment during the search by police for Tamura based on a report by her elder brother that she had been missing. Jiji Press

This file photo taken on October 31, 2017 shows a man (top R) looking at policemen gathering in front of an apartment (partialy covered with a blue sheet) where Japanese police found nine bodies, including two with their heads severed and dumped in a cool box, in Zama, Kanagawa prefecture.

The grisly beheading of nine young people lured by a suspected serial killer after tweeting suicidal thoughts has sparked debate about the use of social media in Japan, which has one of the world's highest suicide rates. The suspect, Takahiro Shiraishi, dubbed the "Twitter killer", reportedly lured his victims -- aged between 15 and 26 -- by trawling social media, and the gruesome discovery has prompted the government to consider tightening internet regulations to restrict suicidal posts. Jiji Press