HIROSHIMA (TR) – Hiroshima Prefectural Police have arrested a 29-year-old man for allegedly murdering his accomplice in a fatal arson attack to silence him and wipe out a massive debt, investigators revealed on Monday, reports the Sankei Shimbun (June 28).
Kanta Kuramoto, an unemployed resident of Hiroshima City’s Minami Ward, is facing charges of robbery and murder following the grisly discovery of a body buried in the dirt on company grounds in Mihara City on April 29.
The deceased has been identified as 29-year-old Masaki Tokuda, a self-employed man from Mihara.
According to police, Kuramoto and Tokuda were accomplices in a deadly arson and murder case that occurred in Higashihiroshima City earlier this year. Investigators suspect Kuramoto killed Tokuda to keep him from talking to the authorities, and to evade repaying a 7-million-yen debt he owed the victim.
Due to severe decomposition, an autopsy could not determine Tokuda’s exact cause of death. Police estimate he was killed sometime between early March and early April.
The initial crime that bound the two men together took place on February 16. Police responding to a house fire in Higashihiroshima City found 49-year-old company executive Kenichi Kawamoto bleeding and collapsed on the property. He was confirmed dead at the scene.
Kawamoto’s wife, who is in her 50s, was also injured in the blaze. Police have been treating the February incident as a case of murder, attempted murder and the arson of an inhabited building. It was during this ongoing arson investigation that police were led to Tokuda’s buried corpse.
