Missing Woman Rescued, Man Arrested for Kidnapping; Suspect Also Linked to Robbery-Murder in Yokohama

The Yomiuri Shimbun

19:21 JST, October 18, 2024

A man arrested over a kidnapping that happened on Thursday is also a suspect in an apparent murder in which the victim was discovered on Wednesday.

Shu Fujii, 26, whose address and occupation are unknown, was arrested Thursday night at a lodging facility in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, and 50-year-old woman who had been taken from her home in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, earlier on the day was rescued at the scene, according to police.

The woman, 50, had serious injuries after assaults that included being hit in the face.

According to investigative sources, Fujii’s fingerprints were found at the scene of a robbery-murder at a house in Aoba Ward, Yokohama. Hiroharu Goto, a 75-year-old resident of the house, was found dead there on Wednesday.

The Ichikawa case was reported to police around 7 a.m. on Thursday by the kidnapped woman’s mother, 72, who lives with her. According to police, the woman had been sleeping when she was assaulted by three men, and was punched and kicked, tied up with what appeared to be adhesive tape and forced into her own car. The woman’s house was damaged and her cash and other belongings were missing.

In addition to Fujii, another man believed to have been involved turned himself in to police in the early hours of Friday.

The methods used in the Ichikawa case, including breaking a window to get into the house, are similar to a series of robberies perpetrated as part of “dark part-time jobs,” so police are investigating potential connections between the cases.