Press "Enter" to skip to content

Sleeping drug found in body of woman dumped in Kanagawa bay

Gregory Gumo
Gregory Gumo

KANAGAWA (TR) – Kanagawa police revealed on Monday that a sleeping drug has been detected inside the body of Mariko Akitaya, whose corpse was found dumped in a bay in Miura City, reports the Kanagawa Shimbun (Aug. 11).

Investigators from the Misaki Police Station are now attempting to understand whether the drug played a role in the death of Akitaya, a 42-year-old resident of Tokyo’s Meguro Ward.

On the morning of July 29, the body of Akitaya, a contract employee in the cosmetics industry, was found wrapped in a brown plastic sheet and floating about 20 meters off the coast in Koajiro Bay. A towing rope had been used to attach the body to a concrete block.

On Thursday, police accused Gregory Gumo, a 41-year-old American marketer and promoter in the entertainment industry, of abandoning the body of Akitaya. Investigators are now working to apply murder charges.

The body exhibited no signs of external injuries. With an autopsy revealing a large quantity of water being present in the lungs, the cause of death was determined to be drowning. The estimated time of death was July 28.

On the day Akitaya’s body was found, Gumo, a resident of Yokohama’s Hodogaya Ward, attempted to travel to the United States on an international flight from Haneda Airport.

During questioning by police prior to his arrest, the suspect admitted that he and the victim had been together prior to the incident but denied involvement in the crime.