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Ehime cops: Suicide note from woman under questioning denies killing anyone

A note from a woman who committed suicide while being questioned by police includes denial of murder
A note from a woman who committed suicide while being questioned by police includes denial of murder (TV Asahi)

EHIME (TR) – Ehime Prefectural Police have revealed that the contents of a note by a woman who committed suicide while undergoing questioning in a murder case in Imabari City last week includes a denial that she committed the crime, reports TBS News (May 7).

On Friday morning, police found the body of the woman, aged in her 30s, at her residence in an apparent suicide. Details as to how she took her life have not been revealed.

At 1:30 p.m. the day before, police began questioning the woman, who has not been named, on a voluntary basis about a stabbing incident that left one women dead and her son injured. After about nine hours, police released the woman.

After initially withholding the contents of the note found at the scene, police said on Sunday that it denied claims of murder. “I didn’t kill,” she wrote.

In the incident in question, police found 92-year-old Yukie Okamoto collapsed with a stab wound to her chest inside an apartment in a municipally managed housing block in the city on Wednesday at around 9:00 a.m.

Okamoto and her son, who suffered a stab wound to his back, were transported to a nearby hospital where Yukie later died that same day.

According to Hisayuki, a middle-aged woman, who is not an acquaintance, committed the stabbing and fled the scene. An examination of security camera footage by police showed the woman near the apartment at the time of the crime.

The location of where the stabbing took place is 400 meters from a residence where another woman, 81-year-old Satsuki Ochi, was found stabbed to death on April 26. Police had been investigating whether there was a connection between the two incidents.

The results of a DNA analysis of evidence found at the crime scene from April 26 proved to be a match for the woman who committed suicide. However, such a match was not made with material found at the residence of Okamoto and her son.