Suspect in Zama murders served 5th arrest warrant

January 16, 2018

Tokyo- Police on Tuesday served a fifth 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 20-year-old man, who was one of the victims.

Shiraishi, 27, told investigators that this man asked him about the whereabouts of the first victim, a 21-year-old woman from Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, and that he killed the man to prevent the murder of the woman from being revealed.

Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department suspects Shiraishi of murdering the man in his apartment in Zama, Kanagawa, around Aug. 30 last year.

The suspect allegedly put his arm around the man's throat to make him pass out, hanged him with a rope to suffocate him and dumped his body after mutilating it.

The timing of his disappearance and other information suggest that the man was the third murder victim.

The police department has so far established a murder case against Shiraishi for four of the nine victims.

According to investigative sources, Shiraishi and the 20-year-old man had been in touch frequently since they met on Aug. 13 last year together with the 21-year-old woman from Atsugi.

On Aug. 29 last year, Shiraishi invited the man for a meal at his apartment and murdered him while they were watching a video on the Internet, the sources said.

Shiraishi said the man resisted when the suspect tried to murder him.

The man went missing on this day after he told his father he would go to see a live show and left home.

His mobile phone was found in a baggage locker at Ebina Station in Ebina, Kanagawa. Shiraishi hinted at having told the man to leave his mobile behind, according to the sources. Jiji Press