Police arrested a man on Saturday, alleging he murdered his former girlfriend, whose body was found at his house in the city of Kawasaki in late April.
The Kanagawa Prefectural Police department suspects that Hideyuki Shirai, 28, killed Asahi Okazaki, a 20-year-old part-time worker, in or near the prefecture around Dec. 20 last year. The police are continuing to investigate the method used in the murder, as well as other circumstances surrounding the high-profile crime.
Shirai has declined to comment on the case during police questioning. He has already been indicted on suspicion of abandoning Okazaki’s body and stalking her.
Okazaki went missing last December when she was staying at her grandmother’s house in Kawasaki. The police found her body under the floor of Shirai’s house during their raid on the residence in late April this year.
The woman’s body, found in a bag, was burnt severely and partially skeletonized. The cause of her death has yet to be determined.
On May 3, the prefectural police said that the body was that of Okazaki and they arrested Shirai upon his return from abroad for allegedly abandoning her body. Shirai was then arrested in late May on suspicion of stalking Okazaki. He was later indicted over the charges.
The victim and her relatives repeatedly consulted with the prefectural police, claiming that she was being harassed and stalked by Shirai.
After Dec. 20, 2024, when Okazaki went missing, the police had questioned the suspect on a voluntary basis seven times in total by March this year. However, it was after Shirai left Japan that the police department searched his house.
A team set up by the department is investigating whether there were any flaws in the police’s handling of the case.