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Man kept corpse of girlfriend at acquaintance’s Tokyo residence

TOKYO (TR) – A man found with the body of his missing girlfriend inside a vehicle in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture earlier this week temporarily kept her body at the residence of an acquaintance, police revealed on Tuesday, reports TV Asahi (Dec. 12).

On Sunday, police found the body likely belonging to Natsuki Taniguchi, a 20-year-old student at a vocational school in Tokyo, in the back seat of a rental car in a parking lot in Iwaki.

The vehicle had been rented by Taniguchi’s boyfriend, 27-year-old Yoshinobu Kumazawa, of no known occupation. The following day, police accused him of abandoning a corpse. The suspect admitted to the allegations upon his arrest.

Taniguchi lived in a dormitory in Nerima Ward that is connected with the school. On December 6, a representative of the school telephoned her parents to tell them that their daughter had not attended class since November 29.

The following day, her father visited the dorm room and found blood on a bed sheet and alerted police. Security camera footage shot at the dormitory in the early morning on December 3 shows a man believed to be Kumazawa carrying a futon that likely covers the corpse of Taniguchi out of her unit.

Natsuki Taniguchi
Natsuki Taniguchi (Twitter)

Suspicion of murder

In the latest development, police revealed that Kumazawa likely used the rented vehicle to move Taniguchi’s body from the dormitory to the residence of one of his acquaintances in Katsushika Ward where he concealed it for an undisclosed amount of time. At some point thereafter, he drove with the body inside the vehicle to Fukushima.

Kumazawa met Taniguchi while they were employed at the same bar. The suspect was dismissed from his post in October. Soon after, Taniguchi resigned, police said.

In addition to confirming the identity of the body, police are continuing the investigation on suspicion of murder. An examination of Taniguchi’s body revealed undisclosed injuries.

According to TBS News (Dec. 12), a nine-page note left behind in the dormitory that is believed to have been written by Kumazawa hinted at involvement in the killing of Taniguchi. In the text, the suspect describes jumping atop her and killing her.

“I killed a woman I have a fondness for,” the suspect wrote. “and I, too, would like to die right after her.”