MIE (TR) – Police have served a fresh arrest warrant on a 37-year-old unemployed man for the alleged murder of his girlfriend, whose body was previously found dumped on a riverbed alongside her university student daughter, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Oct. 7).
According to the Mie Prefectural Police, Takahiro Imakita, a resident of Nara City, is accused of murdering 44-year-old Sonomi Ikeda between the night of February 9 and the early hours of February 10.
Investigators allege Imakita asphyxiated Ikeda by tightening a commercially available zip tie, which he had purchased in advance, around her neck in the first-floor bedroom of her two-story home in Iga City.
Police have not disclosed whether he has admitted to the allegations.
Imakita is already facing charges for corpse abandonment. He was arrested in July and subsequently indicted for dumping the bodies of Ikeda and her 20-year-old daughter, Rion, on the banks of the Nabari River in Nara City between February 10 and 12.
Investigators believe Rion was in a second-floor room of the Iga City residence at the time her mother was being murdered. Police are currently investigating Imakita’s suspected involvement in the daughter’s death.
According to investigative sources, Imakita previously worked for a caregiving company. He met Ikeda through his job, and the two had been dating for about a year.
Imakita reportedly took a day off from his job on February 9, the day the deadly sequence of events began. He, Ikeda, and her daughter were last seen together that same day.
