FRANCE (TR) – A Chilean man suspected by French police of killing a missing Japanese exchange student was spotted in the neighborhood of his home in Santiago, Chile, Fuji News Network reported on Saturday (Dec. 31), amid efforts by local authorities to comb through security camera footage to track him down.
A person involved in running the residence of the suspect wanted in the disappearance of Narumi Kurosaki, 21, says that he was present as recently as Friday before he departed in the morning by car. He has not returned.
“He’s been living here for five or 10 years,” the person said. “He lives alone but sometimes a female relative will show up.”
Kurosaki, a Tokyo native currently enrolled at the University of Franche-Comte in the city of Besancon, located in eastern France, went missing after she ate at a restaurant on December 4 with the suspect, a Chilean male in his 20s who is her former boyfriend.
Media have reported that police concluded Kurosaki was killed after reviewing surveillance camera footage and her phone records.
Several students in Kurosaki’s university dormitory also told officers they heard a scream late at night on December 4, though no traces of blood or evidence of a struggle have been found inside her room.
France to send investigators to Chile
Authorities confirmed that the suspect returned to Chile on December 13.
Fuij News Network (Dec. 31) learned that the suspect had been entering and exiting from his residence, an apartment in a luxurious 16-story building, until recently.
The Chilean man was also away from his residence for about one or two weeks beginning late last month, Nippon News Network reported (Dec. 31). “But I don’t know where he went during that period,” the man connected with running the apartment told the network.
French authorities have enlisted help from INTERPOL to track down the suspect, but are now planning to dispatch investigators to Chile and work with Chilean authorities due to a lack of an extradition treaty with the country.
Authorities reviewing security tapes
Authorities in Besancon are analyzing footage from some 140 surveillance cameras throughout the city in a bid to track down the wanted Chilean man, NHK reports (Dec. 31).
The footage was provided by a city government-affiliated facility that monitors the cameras.
A person involved with the case at the facility said it was “fully cooperating with the investigation by the authorities.”
A facility at Kurosaki’s university also provided authorities with surveillance camera footage, adding that some of the recordings show Kurosaki together with the suspect.
Local French papers reported that the suspect used a rental car to move around Besancon and its suburbs.
