KOBE – A 35-year-old man was taken into police custody in Tokyo on Friday in connection with the fatal assault of a 24-year-old woman outside her residence in Kobe.
Masashi Tanimoto is alleged to have stabbed Megumi Katayama to death inside her building in the western Japan city on Wednesday. The police had put him on a wanted list and were looking into his whereabouts.
“I don’t know if I had the intention of killing her, but there is no question I stabbed her once or twice,” Tanimoto was quoted by police as telling investigators.
The police described him as a company employee with a residence in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward, adding they are investigating any connection between the two and a possible motive.
An investigative source said security camera footage showed a man who appeared to be in his 20s or 30s walking on the street as if to follow Katayama before she was attacked.
The source said the victim had stopped by a post office and a shop after leaving her workplace at around 6:30 p.m. She is believed to have been stabbed inside an elevator she took to go up to the sixth floor, where she lived, after reaching the building at around 7:20 p.m.
The blood on a knife discovered in a parking lot north of the building was a match for Katayama’s, according to the source. The police are also analyzing data on her smartphone found just outside the elevator.
The police took Tanimoto into custody in Okutama, a mountainous town in western Tokyo, after security camera footage showed him boarding an eastbound shinkansen train from Kobe.
AloJapan.com