Naha, Okinawa Pref., Oct. 4 (Jiji Press)–Okinawa Prefectural Police on Sunday arrested a U.S. Marine for allegedly killing a 39-year-old woman in a hotel room in Naha, the capital of the southernmost Japan prefecture, and stealing her belongings. The 20-year-old serviceman, Devin Jacob Ballard, who is stationed at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma air base in Ginowan, Okinawa, has denied the allegation, telling investigators that he does not know anything about it. The police are investigating the details of the case, including the relationship between the suspect and the victim. According to the police, Ballard allegedly killed the woman of unknown occupation from Naha in the hotel room in the city’s Wakasa district between around 2:10 a.m. and 4:15 a.m. on Saturday and stole her backpack, wallet and other belongings. An autopsy found that the woman died of suffocation after being strangled. Investigators said the woman entered the hotel with the suspect at around 2:10 a.m. When hotel staff checked the room at around 4:15 a.m. after the checkout time had passed, they discovered the woman’s body. The backpack and other items were later found near the hotel. Security camera footage in the area showed a man matching the suspect’s distinctive appearance, including tattoos on both arms and a shaved head, leaving the hotel carrying the woman’s backpack. At around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, investigators spotted a man closely matching the appearance captured in the security footage, later identified as Ballard, in an entertainment district in the city of Okinawa in the same prefecture. He was taken in for voluntary questioning at a police station in the city and was arrested on an emergency basis early Sunday. The prefectural police have set up a special investigation headquarters at the Naha police station and assigned about 200 officers to the case. On Sunday, the police informed the prefectural government of the U.S. Marine’s arrest. After it came to light in 2024 that the Okinawa prefectural government had not been informed by either the prefectural police or the central government of sexual crimes involving U.S. military personnel, a mechanism was put in place to share such information with the prefecture. The latest notification was separate from that framework, with a senior police official saying that consideration had been given to the prefectural government. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
