NAGANO (TR) – A man was arrested on Sunday for allegedly murdering his estranged wife after their daughter found her bleeding out with her throat slit in Matsumoto City last month.
Matsumoto Station Police arrested Mitsunori Yamada, 53, of Kotobukidai City on murder charges for allegedly using a knife to slash the throat of Satomi Yamada, 53, who bled to death at around 1 a.m. on June 27, the Sankei Shimbun reports (July 31).
Police determined a knife-like object was used to slit Satomi’s throat, and also identified several cuts on her body. Mitsunori has admitted to the charges.
Mitsunori initially told police he “left the home after dinner past 8 p.m. and returned to my residence,” but his account contradicted his car’s traffic record, Fuji News Network reported.
Police subsequently arrested the suspect after concluding that he returned to the home and murdered his wife.
Satomi was living with her eldest daughter and eldest son, both in high school, as well as her parents in law in a five-person household. Mitsunori was living alone in a separate residence in Nagano Prefecture.
Mitsunori’s eldest daughter discovered blood streaming from Satomi’s neck as she lay collapsed on their first-floor bedroom in their residence in Azusagawa, Matsumoto.
Crimes involving knives has been on the rise over the years.
Just last week, an ex-worker of an assisted living facility in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, went on a stabbing spree and killed 19 people in what police are calling the deadliest massacre since 1989.
In 2008, a knife-wielding man stabbed and killed seven people and injured 10 others after plowing his truck into a crowd in the Akihabara district of Tokyo.
