4 Arrested over 2023 Tokyo Murder Made to Look Like Suicide

Jiji Press

11:55 JST, December 10, 2024

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Tokyo police have arrested four men on suspicion of ordering a male colleague to stand at a railroad crossing and causing him to fatally collide with a train in Tokyo in 2023.

The Metropolitan Police Department arrested Manabu Sasaki, 39, president of a building painter company, and employees Akihito Shimahata, 34, Shunta Nozaki, 39, and Atsuya Iwaide, 30.

The police initially viewed the incident as a possible suicide or accident, but they came to suspect the involvement of Sasaki and others as they investigated a suspicious vehicle that departed from near the railway crossing soon after the collision.

Investigators decided to pursue the case as a murder, thinking that the suspects made the 56-year-old victim, Osamu Takano, obey their orders through daily assaults, making him unable to reject their orders.

The police believe that the four men threatened Takano, a former employee of the company, through assaults and confined him in a vehicle between around 11:40 p.m. Dec. 2, 2023, and midnight. They also allegedly ordered him to stand in a railroad crossing between Shimo-Akatsuka and Tobu-Nerima stations on the Tobu Tojo Line, causing him to collide with a train, making it look like a suicide.

The driver of the train told investigators that Takano was standing alone and raising his arms toward the train as it approached the crossing.

Sasaki and others visited Takano’s home in Shimahata’s vehicle around 10 p.m. on the day of the incident. They took Takano in the vehicle and went to a convenience store about one and a half hours later.