Suspect in death of Vietnamese girl in Chiba to be charged with murder

"The arrest of Shibuya, who claims to run a real-estate leasing business"

Always puzzled by this kind of language. Either he does or he doesn't. At this late date, reporters haven't been able to find out?

The police are analyzing several kinds of ropes seized at the suspect's home and elsewhere to see if any match the type allegedly used in the murder

They should be able to find something. All the evidence so far is circumstantial but the murder scene would be covered with evidence. It is totally insane to charge the suspect with "abandoning the body" and not with the actual murder!!

Suspect in death of Vietnamese girl in Chiba to be charged with murder

Probably a good idea.

It is totally insane to charge the suspect with "abandoning the body" and not with the actual murder!!

It's a clever way to legally hold someone for 20 days allowing time for further charges with stiffer penalties. The cops can forgo charges on the abandonment and just go with murder if they want. But they need charges to stick, so they use the holding time provided by the first charge to keep suspects in their control.

Japanese law is a strange thing. They have enough evidence to connect him to the murder, but unless he confesses it's unlikely they can make the murder charge stick.

Wasn't that American guy who took his girl friend to Hakone and then ditched her body in Miura only busted for abandoning the body and not murder?

Might this happen as well? Although his DNA evidence was found of her body......

I haven't heard of any sexual violation so I think it must have been personal in some way. Was it this child had some higher standing in some way (academics or athletics) over his own children? Doesn't matter the motive really. I don't know why animals like this exist. He deserves to die slowly if he is guilty.

Five facts about him that we know from news releases.

He claims to run a real estate business. He is not speaking. The girl told her friend at school in January that there was a scary person on the way to school so she was either running through that section or taking another route to school. He is relatively rich with property and a mobile home. He was chairman of the PTA.

Put these all together and a blurry picture of someone starts to emerge. He claims one thing but clams up about another. The girl saw him as scary over a couple of months, meaning this was not a sudden impulsive act. Mentally and politically clever, he worked his way to the top of the most respected committee in the school area, possibly keeping his cards so close to his chest that even his family did not really know him. He is conversant with the law and has covered his tracks well enough that the cops are having a hard time making the case stick. Was he a member of a shady organization at one time, I wonder?

All the evidence so far is circumstantial

WTF? His DNA was on her body, and her hair was in his car. Plus there's footage of his car near all the important scenes of this crime, at the time she disappeared.

The boys in blue are grilling this guy with all they have right now to try to force him to confess. They have enough to put him away for the murder but want it neat and tidy with a signed confession. Give them a few more day and they will have him saying anything they want.

If he is guilty may he have a really "nice" cell mate! RIP Le Anh Hao.

As the logic dictates, her hair in his car and his DNA on her makes it sound enough to say they were together at some point. Only by building the model of what happened further one can determine that he was the murderer. But while the logic is behind such conclusion, there is no hard, solid evidence to suggest that he killed her. Only that they were together for reasons I do not know.

Obviously they are not letting him go, either way. I sure hope it was him who killed the girl. Otherwise there is a sick scum walking free out there.

I haven't heard of any sexual violation

The police have conveniently left that detail out, probably out of a sense of decency, but they did find his DNA on her body. So, it was either bodily fluids, or his skin under her fingernails.