At 3:45 p.m., a distress call was placed to emergency services from Hotel City in the Akebonocho area. “I’ve been stabbed,” the male caller said. “Please help. I don’t want to die.”
Emergency personnel arriving at the hotel found a woman in her 30s collapsed and bleeding inside a room on the fifth floor. Meanwhile, a man in his 20s was discovered bleeding in a corridor.
The woman, who had suffered some 40 stab wounds to her chest and abdomen, was confirmed dead at the scene. The man is receiving medical care for a stab wound to the abdomen, the Tachikawa Police Station said.
In security camera footage taken at the hotel, the woman enters the room shortly before the incident.
A second man then follows her for what police believe was their first encounter. After the second man exits, he stabs the first man in the corridor. The footage also shows the second man fleeing the scene.
Police believe that the first man is a work-related colleague of the woman. The woman is believed to have alerted him to the room after the second man began stabbing her.
On suspicion of murder
Police are seeking the whereabouts of the second man, believed to be in his 20s, on suspicion of murder. At the time of the incident, he was dressed all in black and wearing a black backpack.
Police found a knife with a 20-centimeter-long blade plunged into a wall of the corridor.
Police believe the second man headed toward JR Tachikawa Station after the incident. Bloodstains were found on a concourse leading to a ticket gate at the station, police said.
