Police in Tokyo said Friday that a body found in a luggage storage room in Hachioji is that of a nurse who went missing in Osaka two months ago.
The 29-year-old nurse, Rika Okada, who lived in an apartment near the hospital where she worked in Nishinari Ward, Osaka, went missing after leaving the hospital to walk home one Sunday night in late March.
Fuji TV quoted police as saying that a check of the storage room rented in Okada's name turned up the body wrapped in a sheet on Wednesday. Police also said a woman using Okada's passport left the country at the beginning of May, and suspect that woman -- who is a Brazilian woman of Japanese ancestry in her 20s -- somehow substituted her photo for Okada's in the passport.
Police said that Okada's mother sent and received email messages from her daughter in April but had not heard from her in May, so she contacted police, Fuji TV reported. Police found traces of blood in the Osaka apartment and after a DNA analysis was conducted, confirmed that it belonged to the missing woman.
Police said a DNA test showed the remains found in the Hachioji storage room to be that of Okada.
© Japan Today
15 Comments
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Magnus Roe
ugh, this a very unsettling case, whether Miss Okada was in the storage room or on the plane.
khulifi
Easy the Interpol can bring the women who used Okada's passport ... easy to trace
WA4TKG
North Korean Spy
jajanator
She went missing 2 months ago but the mother only noticed at the beginning of this month ? Quite sad.
And there should be a tighter coordination between police and airports. Someone using a missing person's passport shouldn't be able to leave the country.
TumbleDry
Where did the woman go? Probably a foreigner. Can't possibly come back with same passport.
Hampy
I hope they find this women and justice catches up to her. No less then the death penalty for such a crime. TO rob someone of their life for a passport. Mind you on some level if passports werent necessary this woman would be alive. perhaps there should be easier more simpler ways to get passports or register for one. BUt most likely in this case she was illega and had a criminal record of some sort. im so sick of japanese women getting murdered. they need to have hand guns or pepper spray
John Galt
More to this story than what's here for sure. Doesn't sound random but pre-planned.
Jay Que
...there seems to be a penchant, among certain homocidal types in parts of Japan, for storing bodies in luggage and related places. Is this an outlier to the dangerous effect of the Louis Vitton craze among Japanese ladies?
gelendestrasse
This is a strange one, to be sure.
oikawa
More questions than answers after this report. How do the police know the woman is Brazilian? How did that woman know of the storage space? Why was her mother still getting messages from her in April if she was already dead? The police must know a lot more than they're letting on .
telecasterplayer
So, the Brazilian woman possibly did something prior to the death of Okada that would make her want to get out of the country, undetected. There is likely at least one other crime attached to this.
ham21
What, didn't her workplace report her missing? Why didn't anyone checkup when her utilities that didn't get paid? It's like she lived in a vacuum with no contact with anyone. Sad when no one knows or don't care that you exist for 2 months.
nath
Many Japanese people these days have their utilities/rent set up to be directly debited from their accounts. If she had savings, the payments would be made even after her death.
thuganomics79
Just watched the news on TV. Apparently, her murderer sent text messages to Ms. Okada's mother from the victim's cellphone. This would suggest that the murder/ imposter was able to pretend that she was the victim. Once the Brazilian was able to leave the country, she fled to Shanghai.
nandakandamanda
With recent developments the story is much more convoluted now. There seem to be two women involved in her disappearance, one a Chinese exchange student, the other this Brazilian Japanese woman. The body itself was sent to the storage locker by someone using Rika Okada's name, and the box was labelled 'Doll'. I do not envy anyone having to translate this story as the full details emerge!!!
Moderator: We will post an updated story on Tuesday morning.