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Police in Imabari City, Ehime Prefecture, said Friday that the suspect in the murder of a 92-year-old woman on Wednesday has committed suicide.
The suspect, a woman in her late 30s, was found dead at her home on Friday morning. Local media quoted police as saying a note was found near her body, but did not immediately give any further details about the suicide.
The woman had submitted to voluntary questioning from 1:30 p.m. until 10:30 p.m. Thursday about the murder of Yukie Okamaoto and the wounding of her 70-year-old son Hisayuki at their apartment in a municipal housing complex in Muroyacho on Wednesday morning.
She was allowed to return home late Thursday. When police went back to her apartment at 9 a.m. on Friday to resume their questioning, one of her family members found her dead in her room.
Police said the woman surfaced as a suspect after she was seen riding a bicycle near the crime scene shortly after the attack.
According to police, Okamoto and her son were stabbed just before 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Hisayuki told police that a woman, wearing a towel around her head, entered their first-floor apartment and stabbed his mother in the chest. When he went to assist his mother, the woman stabbed him in the back a few times, dropped the knife and then fled.
Hisayuki stumbled outside to call for help. Both victims were taken to hospital where Yukie died from loss of blood later Wednesday. Hisayuki was in a stable condition Friday, police said.
Police found a blood-stained knife at the scene.
Hisayuki said he did not know the woman.
The scene of the crime is only 400 meters from a home where another elderly woman, Satsuki Ochi, 81, was found stabbed to death on April 26.
Police said they had also questioned the suspect about that crime.
© Japan Today
9 Comments
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nandakandamanda
According to today's news, the contents of the note include the phrase 私は殺していない "I did not kill (her/them)", but the police say they have found further DNA belonging to this woman at the scene of the crime, leading to a heightened probability that she did, they say.
Pukey2
You want to get involved????!!! Rather you than me.
Had the suspect been a foreigner, I doubt (s)he'd be released.
Strangerland
Who says there would have been responsibility to take? If they didn't have enough evidence to hold her, then holding her would have been unreasonable seizure. That's what dictatorships do.
Peter Bowie
Just like to know who would take the responseability , if the woman who was released voluntarily , possibly suffering from some form of mental illnesss ( this should of been checked from the first bounce) had decided to go on another stabbing , killing rampage.
if she had a patient history of mental illness, surely the red light at the police investigators office , would be flashing.
smithinjapan
Strangerland: "but it's too bad as now there cannot be any resolution to the issue."
Sounds like parts of it are pretty resolved to me, albeit not in a very positive manner. But yes, hopefully they can still figure out a why.
Strangerland
I suppose the police must not have had enough evidence to hold her, on this crime or any other, but it's too bad as now there cannot be any resolution to the issue.
Jonorth
Even though this looks like a confession, I hope they won't end the investigation here without more evidence.
HaiDesu
Serial stabber? This is a shame but I suspect if it is not a grudge, the woman has mental health problems.