Victim’s Address Stolen before Tochigi Robbery-Murder

Sakura, Tochigi Pref., May 18 (Jiji Press)–Documents with the address of an elderly woman killed in last week’s high-profile robbery-murder case in Tochigi Prefecture, eastern Japan, along with precious metals, were stolen from the house of her second son in April, investigative sources said Monday. In the robbery-murder case that occurred around 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, several people broke into the house of the woman, Eiko Tomiyama, 69, in the Tochigi town of Kaminokawa, and stabbed her to death. Her first son in his 40s and second son in his 30s, who rushed to the scene, suffered injuries after being attacked with crowbars. The methods used in the two cases were similar, as the windows on the first floor of the houses of Tomiyama and her second son were both broken, according to the sources. Separately, a man from neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture was arrested near Tomiyama’s house on May 7 on suspicion of using a stolen license plate on a car. The Tochigi prefectural police department is investigating possible connections between these cases and the robbery-murder incident, focusing on the involvement of a loosely organized “tokuryu” anonymous crime group. The prefectural police have so far arrested four 16-year-old high school boys, all of whom live in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, as perpetrators of the robbery-murder case. On Sunday, the police arrested Kaito Takemae, 28, and his wife, Miyu, 25, both unemployed and from Yokohama, the capital of Kanagawa, as possible masterminds. The prefectural police sent the 28-year-old man to prosecutors on Monday. The second student arrested among the four perpetrators attended the same high school as the first and was acquainted with the third. The prefectural police are investigating the relationship among the four, their points of contact with the two suspected masterminds, and the possibility that a higher-ranking ringleader was involved. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]