TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 44-year-old man who is suspected of framing the murder of his wife last year as a suicide, reports NHK (Mar. 1).
On the night of November 29, Jun Takahari, a company employee, allegedly choked his wife, 41-year-old Asaka, unconscious and shoved her off the balcony of their ninth-floor apartment.
Upon his arrest on suspicion of murder on Saturday, Takahari denied the allegations.
Takahari and his wife lived in the residence with their young child.
At around 6:30 a.m. on November 30, Takahari alerted police. “I woke up early and my wife was not here,” he reportedly said. He then went on to say that “it seems she committed suicide.”
Police later said that the cause of death was “death from a fall” due to chest injuries. However, markings on her neck indicated that she had been choked.
Security camera footage
An examination of security camera footage shot at around 8:00 p.m. on November 29 showed another person — perhaps Takahari — inside the residence when Asaka plunged from the balcony.
As well, a neighbor told police that loud sounds came from the unit at around that same time.
Police believe that Takahari thought that he had killed his wife by strangling her and covered up the crime by pushing her off the balcony.
On the day he called police, he told officers arriving at the scene that he and his wife had gotten into a fight about whether to get a divorce the day before.
