Eldest Daughter Arrested for Killing Tokyo Couple

Jiji Press

17:24 JST, June 28, 2024

Tokyo, June 27 (Jiji Press) — A joint investigation team of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department and the Tochigi prefectural police on Thursday arrested the eldest daughter of a couple found dead in the town of Nasu in Tochigi Prefecture, eastern Japan, on suspicion of killing her parents.

The investigation team did not disclose whether she admitted the charge. She is the seventh person arrested over the murders.

Manami Takarajima, 31, became representative director of the couple’s company on May 15, a month after the incident, though she resigned as director of the firm in January. The police suspect that problems with management of restaurants the couple ran in Tokyo’s Ueno district triggered the murders.

The suspect is alleged to have murdered Ryutaro Takarajima, a 55-year-old company executive, and his wife, Sachiko, 56, whom police believe were strangled in an empty house in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, between the night of April 15 and the following morning.

According to the team, the suspect was not at the murder scene, but evidence strongly suggests her involvement in the killings.

The couple ran more than 10 restaurants in Ueno. The suspect’s de facto husband, Seiha Sekine, a 32-year-old corporate executive and alleged mastermind of the murders, operated several of them.

Sekine, his friend Ryo Maeda, a 36-year-old real estate company executive, and four other men who were not acquainted with the couple have been served arrest warrants on suspicion of murdering them and charged with the destruction of their bodies.

The team suspects that Sekine was angry with the couple over the operation of the restaurants and sought Maeda’s cooperation in killing them. Sekine is believed to have paid a total of ¥15 million to the four suspects, who allegedly directed or carried out the murders.

It is believed that Manami knew Maeda but had no connection with the four.