Man Hints at Involvement in Death of Girl in Central Japan

May 14, 2018

Niigata- Police are questioning a man on a voluntary basis in connection with the murder of a seven-year-old girl in the central Japan city of Niigata, informed sources said Monday.

The man in his 20s, a neighbor of the victim, has made testimony suggesting his involvement in murdering the girl, Tamaki Omomo, a local elementary school second-grader, and abandoning her body on a train track in the city, said the sources familiar with police investigations.

According to the Niigata prefectural police department, the driver of a train noticed the girl lying on the track around 10:30 p.m. on May 7 (1:30 p.m. GMT), hit the brakes, but could not stop the train in time.

An autopsy found that the cause of her death was suffocation.

The police believe that the girl was killed somewhere else before she was hit by the train and that her body was left on the track.

The girl was on her way back home with several friends around 3 p.m. on that day. She is believed to have gone missing after saying goodbye to the friends.

Her family reported to the local police around 5 p.m. that she had not returned home.

Her body was found at a location several hundred meters from her home.

According to the investigative sources, a pink umbrella that the girl was carrying on the day of her disappearance is still missing. The fingerprints of several people were detected on her school bag, found near the train track.

The girl told a classmate on the day that she had been chased by a man wearing sunglasses and dressed in black on her way to school, according to the city's education board.

The prefectural police department has received reports about suspicious vehicles and people spotted near the site.

The police are analyzing security camera footage and images from automobile event data recorders. Jiji Press