KANAGAWA (TR) – Kanagawa Prefectural Police have announced that they arrested a 46-year-old man over the alleged murder of a male former colleague who went missing in Kawasaki City more than two decades ago, reports Jiji Press (Mar. 7).
According to police, Yoshiyuki Sakai, a resident of Kawasaki City’s Asao Ward, fatally stabbed Toshiaki Kiyono with a knife-like object in Kawasaki City or its vicinity around October 2003.
Upon Sakai’s arrest on suspicion of murder on Thursday, he denied the allegations. “I didn’t do it,” he told police. The statute of limitations for the charge of abandoning a body have already expired.
According to investigators, the body of Kiyono had multiple wounds, including wounds on the ribs that appeared to have been caused by a knife. The murder weapon has not been found.
Bloodstains in car yet no arrest
On October 31, 2003, Kiyono, then 26, did not return home from the liquor store in Kawasaki City where he was employed. His father filed a missing person report with the prefectural police the following day.
Multiple former colleagues told police that when Sakai was working as a manager at the store he had been violent towards Kiyono, who was the assistant manager. The January before Kiyono disappeared, Sakai resigned from the liquor store due an assault on the victim.
In April 2010, a police officer on patrol found skeletal remains in a wooded area in Sennen, Takatsu Ward. That November, the results of a DNA analysis and other tests determined that the body is that of Kiyono.
In October, police seized Sakai’s car during voluntary questioning. DNA testing on bloodstains found in the car proved to be a match for Kiyono.
However, Sakai denied involvement in a crime during voluntary questioning that year and in 2011.
Kiyono’s family commented through their lawyer on March 6, “We would like to continue to monitor the investigation and quietly wait for the facts to be revealed. We are emotionally very shaken by the sudden news of [Sakai’s] arrest.”
Kiyono’s father told reporters in 2010, “I always thought my son would come back someday. If there is a culprit, I hope they are caught quickly.”
