KANAGAWA (TR) – An American male on trial at the Yokohama District Court in the death of a woman in Miura City last July will not be prosecuted on charges of murder, reports Nippon News Network (April 19).
At a hearing on Monday, prosecutors cited a lack of evidence as the reason for not pursuing a murder conviction in their case against Gregory Gumo, a 41-year-old marketer in the entertainment industry, in the death of 42-year-old Mariko Akitaya, whose body was found floating in Koajiro Bay.
“For the crime of murder, the gathering of evidence for prosecution was insufficient,” the side of the prosecution said in a statement.
Prosecutors had previously asserted that Gumo had murdered Akitaya, a resident of Tokyo’s Meguro Ward, and dumped her body. In February, however, prosecutors changed their case, claiming that she was still alive at the time of the abandonment.
On the morning of July 29, Akita’s body was found wrapped in a brown plastic sheet and floating about 20 meters off the coast. A towing rope had been used to attach the body to a concrete block.
With an autopsy conducted on the body revealing a large quantity of water being present in the lungs, the cause of death was determined to be drowning.
On the same day Akitaya’s body was found, Gumo was stopped by police as he attempted to travel to the United States on an international flight from Haneda Airport. Gumo was arrested for abandoning the body of Akitaya on August 6.
Later in August, Gumo was arrested for the murder of Akitaya. According to TV Asahi (April 18), Gumo denied the charge of murder during police questioning. “She committed suicide,” he was quoted by police.
Gumo is currently under prosecution for abandoning the corpse of Akitaya.