KANAGAWA (TR) – Investigative sources with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police have confirmed the identity of all nine corpses found late last month in the residence of a man in Zama City, reports TV Asahi (Nov. 8).
According to information provided on Friday, the results of DNA analyses concluded that three of the victims are female high school students: Kureha Ishihara (15) from Gunma Prefecture, Natsumi Kubo (17) from Saitama Prefecture and Akari Suda (17) from Fukushima Prefecture.
Two other victims are from Saitama (Hinako Sarashina, 19, and Hitomi Fujima, 26) while three others are from Kanagawa Prefecture (Mizuki Miura and Kazumi Maruyama, both 21). The only male victim is Shogo Nishinaka, 20, who is also from Kanagawa and the boyfriend of Miura.
Police had previously identified the ninth body as belonging to Aiko Tamura, a 23-year-old woman from Tokyo’s Hachioji City who went missing last month.
Body parts in ice coolers
On October 30, Tokyo police investigating the disappearance of Tamura entered the residence and found the body parts belonging to the eight women and one man inside seven ice coolers.
Following questioning, police arrested Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, on suspicion of abandoning a corpse. The suspect told police he carved up the bodies after killing the persons. “I dismembered the corpses in the bathroom,” Shiraishi was quoted. “I did it as a means of destroying evidence.”
Shiraishi moved into the residence in late August. Police believe the killings took place between August 22 and October 30.
According to previous reports, Shiraishi lured victims to his residence via Twitter, telling persons who expressed an interest in taking their lives that he had special knowledge of death by hanging.