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A man is being held by police in connection with the murder of a nurse in Beppu last year. But the suspect has denied any involvement in the crime, police said Thursday.
According to police, the 33-year-old man from Kawasaki, who has been named as Kenji Ando, was arrested in connection with a separate incident that took place in Kanagawa Prefecture. TV reports say police soon found evidence linking him to the disappearance of 28-year-old Hiromi Yokote. Police say that Ando used the SIM card from Yokote's missing cell phone in his own handset. Police also performed DNA tests on Yokote's possessions and found the blood type of her suspected killer matched Ando's.
According to investigators, during questioning Ando, has repeated a series of vague responses in regard to the murder, but has not made a clear statement as yet.
© Japan Today
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Elbuda Mexicano
RIP Ms. Ando by the way they interviewed some young ladies who know this suspect, they said his nickname was YAJU, or beast in English, so Im no lawyer but I do hope this savage beast gets what he deserves!
Christina O'Neill
Well done the police to follow up their investigation after the incident in Kanagawa
mikihouse
Having her SIM though is a bit difficult to defend in court. People don't sell SIM on the net nor it is easily acquired as it requires owwneship transfer unlike prepaid cards. Nevetheless guilty or not guilty, he will confess to the crime...police force in Japan is not concernedif they have the real culprit, they just want case closure.
But hey, I give them credit for being able to get to this point. I say lucky break.
Frungy
Yeah, I also read this a few times and went, "WTF??!!". Blood type is not "DNA Evidence". This is like saying, "We found black hair at the scene and our suspect has black hair.". ... okay, well that might not be the best example in Japan ;)
Asagao
Good job police for following this up. In some countries, if not solved in the first couple of weeks, it sits at the bottom of a forgotten pile.
Oracle
Did she disappear or was she murdered?
If you did not do something, just how clear would your responses be? When asked if you killed someone, you may well respond: "Who? What are you talking about?" or "I don't know why you are questioning me about this!" Do you really think a clear "I did not kill that woman!" would be a smart response? They would say "Ah, so you know it was a woman!" And you say, "Yes! You said her name was Hiromi!" But that exchange did not really help you.
Seems the only clear response the police want to hear is "Yeah, I did it!", as usual.
How did he get the SIM card? Well, he might have bought it from someone. And that someone might have been the perp. Mind you, I don't imagine he is completely innocent. But I don't know if this woman was murdered or disappeared. This case has a million questions left unanswered, and until a good bit are answered, it would be foolish to jump to conclusions.
Kevin Lee Brooke
Dear God, let's hope the prosecutors in Japan are not citing blood type as "DNA Evidence" in court.
Graham DeShazo
Dear God, what an idiot. Let's hope he has not, nor will he ever pass on his obviously mutated genetic code.
nath
So, using the victim's SIM card became his undoing. It was just Yokote Hiromi's luck that he happened to be prowling around when she went for a soak at that lonely hot spring.