WAKAYAMA (TR) – Wakayama Prefectural Police have arrested a 64-year-old girlfriend of an elderly man after finding him collapsed on the Gobo City property of another girlfriend who was found dead, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Feb. 3).
On Friday, officers from the Gobo Police Station found Akira Yurimoto, 80, who had been reported missing, collapsed at the residence of his girlfriend, Yoshiko Kurita, a 67-year-old garbage collector living in the town of Fujita.
Police also found the fully nude corpse of Kurita on an area of dirt outside the kitchen on the property. Kurita was later found to have died earlier on Friday due to hypothermia, police said.
According to police, Yurimoto’s face was red and his left wrist had suffered a gash. He was rushed to a hospital in serious condition.
On Saturday, police arrested Machiko Tanimoto, who is also in a relationship with Yurimoto, for a previous incident last month. Police accused Tanimoto, also a resident of Fujita, of assaulting Yurimoto with her fists at Kurita’s residence in the early morning hours of January 23.
“Since I told him not to go to the house of another woman, I beat him in the face and head,” the suspect was quoted by police in admitting to the allegations.
Police arrived at the residence of Kurita after receiving a report from the family of Yurimoto that said he went missing on January 31.
Police are now investigating whether the suspect was involved in the injuries suffered by Yurimoto and death of Kurita.
“Everybody knew”
According to Nippon News Network (Feb. 3), Yurimoto’s two-timing was not a secret. “Everybody knew,” one resident said.
A 79-year-old male neighbor told NHK (Feb. 3) that Yurimoto visited the residence everyday. “On the morning of January 23, I heard the sound of glass being pounded coming from outside,” he said. “After a while, Kurita asked for help in calling the police. I never thought that such a thing would happen.”
