Suspect in Zama murders served 4th arrest warrant

December 27, 2017

Tokyo- Police on Wednesday served a fourth arrest warrant on Takahiro Shiraishi, first held for alleged corpse abandonment in a high-profile case involving nine dismembered bodies, this time for allegedly murdering a 21-year-old woman, who was one of the victims.

Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department suspects Shiraishi, 27, of choking to death the woman, a resident of Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, in his apartment in Zama, also in Kanagawa, around Aug. 23.

He has admitted the charges, saying he committed the crime primarily for money, according to investigative sources.

The timing of her disappearance and other information suggest that the woman was the first murder victim.

The police department has so far established a murder case against Shiraishi for three of the nine victims, including a 23-year-old woman from Hachioji, Tokyo, and a 25-year-old woman from Yokohama, Kanagawa.

Shiraishi allegedly fastened his hands around the 21-year-old woman's throat to make her pass out, hanged her with a rope to suffocate her, mutilated her body by late August and dumped part of the body at a garbage collection location.

According to the sources, the woman visited a real-estate company on Aug. 19 with Shiraishi. She handed 510,000 yen in cash to Shiraishi as funds for renting a room.

The woman went missing after speaking on the phone with a friend on the evening of Aug. 23. Her mobile phone was taken to Katase-Enoshima Station in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, as a lost and found item.

The woman and Shiraishi contacted each other frequently through free smartphone communications app KakaoTalk starting Aug. 8.

In her messages, the woman said she wanted to die because she was tired but also suggested she was unsure about her willingness to die. Shiraishi said the woman resisted when he tried to murder her, according to the sources. Jiji Press