TOKYO (TR) – Investigative sources with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police revealed on Wednesday that security camera footage shows a man suspected in the murder of his 26-year-old former girlfriend carrying a suitcase, possibly containing her body, out of the residence they shared, reports Nippon News Network (Aug. 31).
On August 27, police found the body Nao Kato, a company employee who went missing on August 20, in the mountains of Izu City. The week before, police had begun questioning her former boyfriend, 44, over her disappearance. However, he was later found to have killed himself at the home of his parents in Hiroshima Prefecture.
Kato lived with the her former boyfriend at an apartment in Tokyo’s Ota Ward. Security camera footage taken at the residence shows her former boyfriend carrying a bag out of the residence and placing it in a vehicle, according to police sources. Police believe that her body was inside the luggage.
Conceal her disappearance
Kato captured in other security camera footage with her former boyfriend on August 19. Police had previously speculated that a response to an email message sent to her phone by a male acquaintance was on the following day was done by her former boyfriend in an effort to conceal her disappearance.
On August 22, Kato’s mother filed a missing persons report with the Denenchofu Police Station. An investigation was subsequently launched into her former boyfriend.
Based on eyewitness testimony and the tracked movements of the vehicle driven by Kato’s boyfriend, police found her body in a forested area of Yugashima in Izu. Her former boyfriend is expected to be prosecuted on suspicion of murder and abandoning a corpse.
