The Yomiuri Shimbun
Metropolitan Police Department investigators gather Thursday
outside the condominium where Yusuke and Kaori Mihashi were living
in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo.A Tokyo woman arrested Wednesday on
suspicion of abandoning her husband's mutilated body in December in
the city's Shinjuku and Shibuya wards has reportedly confessed to
killing him in his sleep.
According to the Metropolitan Police Department, Kaori Mihashi, 32,
confessed to killing her husband Yusuke, 30, in the early morning
hours of Dec. 12. The MPD quoted her as saying she hit him in the
head with a wine bottle while he slept and cut up his body with a
saw.
Kaori has been arrested on suspicion of abandoning the body and the
MPD said they are continuing to investigate and expect to rearrest
her on suspicion of murder.
The couple lived in Shibuya Ward and Yusuke worked for an
investment management firm that was part of the U.S.-based
financial group Morgan Stanley.
The MPD quoted Kaori as saying "I wanted to kill him because he
denied my existence and was violent to me." She reportedly told the
MPD, "I wanted the body to vanish in front of me as soon as
possible."
Late in December after she abandoned the body, she drastically
renovated the interior of the couple's condominium, changing floors
and wallpaper. The MPD suspects the murder was committed on impulse
and she tried to eliminate evidence afterwards.
The MPD confirmed there is a depression in the head they recovered
that is consistent with the sort of wound that would be produced by
wine bottle.
Kaori said she cut up the body because, "the body was heavier than
I imagined to carry it by myself."
As for the left arm and right wrist, which have not been found, she
said, "I disposed of them together with garbage."
On Dec. 15, Kaori asked the MPD to search for Mihashi, saying her
husband had not returned home since leaving for work on Dec. 11.
MPD investigators first linked the mutilated body to Mihashi's
disappearence because the size of the torso and lower body matched
Mihashi's description.
The MPD found that one of Mihashi's office colleagues who was
worried about him confirmed that he had returned home in the early
hours of Dec. 12 by checking video records from a security camera
at the entrance of the condominium.
Since the information contradicted what Kaori had told them when
reporting her husband's disappearance, the MPD conducted DNA
analysis of the body and Mihashi's mother in secret. After
confirming the parent-child relation of the two, the MPD questioned
Kaori, and she reportedly confessed to the crime.
According to the police, Kaori called her husband's office on Dec.
12 to confirm his presence, and pretended to be worried about
him.
On Dec. 15, she asked the MPD to search for her husband after
Mihashi's colleague advised her to do so. Asked by the police why
she had waited so long to report him missing she said he sometimes
stayed out overnight without notice.
Kaori used a saw and a shovel she purchased at a large store in
Shibuya Ward to mutilate and dispose of the body, but neither tool
has been found at her home.
No traces of the victim's blood were detected on the bedding in the
condominium. The caretaker of the condominium said the renovation
company said it would remodel the kitchen and bathroom, and did not
mention changing floors and wallpaper.
Kaori reportedly said she disposed of the saw and the shovel, and
the MPD assumes she tried to cover up the evidence of her crime
carefully.
(Jan. 12, 2007)