Ex-Boyfriend Arrested on Mito Woman Murder Charge

Mito, Ibaraki Pref., Jan. 21 (Jiji Press)–Police arrested a 28-year-old man on Wednesday on suspicion of murdering his former girlfriend, a pregnant manicurist whose body was found in an apartment in the city of Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, late last year. According to the Ibaraki prefectural police, the suspect, Takumi Ouchi, from the town of Shirosato in the same prefecture, repeatedly made calls to the mobile phone of the 31-year-old victim, Haruka Komatsumoto, and sent messages via social media last summer and was trying to find the whereabouts of her in and after October. Ouchi has been charged with beating Komatsumoto on the head with a blunt object and stabbing her in the neck to death in the apartment room on Dec. 31 afternoon. He denied the charges. Four days before the killing, Komatsumoto called the prefectural police to talk about being stalked but hanged up without providing her name or contact information, the police said in explaining why they were unaware of the situation. Komatsumoto’s husband, 27, found her body in the apartment’s entryway after returning home from work. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]