Prosecutors in Osaka have indicted a 37-year-old man on suspicion of killing a 21-year-old woman in Kyoto last October by poisoning her with thallium.
According to the indictment, Kazuki Miyamoto, a real estate agent, who was arrested on March 3, poisoned university student Hinako Hamano by getting her to ingest a lethal amount of thallium, a highly toxic substance that was once widely used as rat poison.
Miyamoto initially told police that on Oct 11, he and Hamano had dined out before going to Hamano's apartment for a drink. He said she started coughing repeatedly and that he gave her some cough medicine which he had bought at a pharmacy.
Miyamoto contacted the woman's family, who took her to a hospital in Osaka Prefecture the next day. However, her condition worsened, and she died on Oct 15. An autopsy revealed her cause of death was acute respiratory distress syndrome, which prevents the lungs from providing vital organs with sufficient oxygen, due to thallium poisoning.
Traces of the toxic substance were found in her vomit and urine. Based on security camera footage obtained during their investigation and the opinions of toxicologists, police determined that Miyamoto got the woman to ingest the substance while they were at her apartment.
Since his arrest, Miyamoto has refused to speak and investigators have not yet determined how he obtained thallium which is a legally restricted substance, nor what motive he might have had for killing Hamano. However, investigators said an examination of Miyamoto’s smartphone showed that on Oct 11, he searched for sites on symptoms of thallium poisoning.
© Japan Today/KYODO
13 Comments
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sakurasuki
Still they are not explaining where he got it? Does his place show any trace of that substance? Did he really do it?
Did he really typed those word? Or he just typed all symptomps that happened to her at Oct 11 like coughing etc?
It's still an asumption
Jonathan Prin
On what grounds did police indict him ?
He may have found on his own that Thallium may be the poison because of the symptoms he saw coming step by step.
And the cough medicine ?
What are the real proofs ?
JeffLee
On what grounds did police indict him ?
Maybe this had something to do with it:
wallace
Heartless man. Robbing the young woman of her life.
Sven Asai
Could be the place where they dined out, they with quite a probability have some rat poison like substances there, instead of him buying it directly at a drug store before that suspected killing with all those camera surveillance and register records at such stores, then at home when the symptoms showed up, he might just have made an amateur search on the phone and found rat poison as a possible cause and went for more details. Yes, he is surely a main suspect, but they surely should check that dining place too in my opinion.
3RENSHO
This article identifies the suspect Miyamoto as a 'real estate agent' but in actual fact, he was running a side business that involved attracting and recruiting young women to become Maiko (apprentice Geisha)...
WiseOneIn Kansai
I just read, he has a relative who is currently unconscious as a result of thallium poisoning.
https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14869937
lunatic
Is there any evidence?
Justice is a serious matter. We shouldn't indict people just based in their browser history.
Speed
Lesson learned. Don't search the Net for things related to how you're going to kill someone. If you're going to throw hot lava on someone, don't check out where to get it from or what'll happen.
kurisupisu
Japan has many sources of poison if one knows where to look
TokyoOldMan
Sounds like something out of a Russian playbook.
Kale apparently absorbs it quite readily, and has been reported as making people Sick... so best be aware of the symptoms, especially if you have a craving for such Greens.
garypen
If he did indeed do it, I'm curious as to what his motive could have been.