Overview

• Hyogo police on August 29 re-arrested Shigehiro Shimizu, 62, on suspicion of murdering his wife at their Nishinomiya home and he has acknowledged the allegation, citing dissatisfaction with her lifestyle.
• Investigators say the wife’s body was found unclothed on August 7 beside a road in Sumoto on Awaji Island, and Shimizu had turned himself in the next day before his initial arrest on a dead-body abandonment charge.
• In the separate Kobe case, office worker Megumi Katayama, 24, was fatally stabbed in an apartment elevator on August 20, and suspect Masashi Tanimoto, 35, was arrested on murder charges after allegedly slipping through an auto-lock entrance to follow her.
• Court and police records show Tanimoto was fined in 2020 for violating the anti-stalking law and received a suspended sentence in 2022 for choking a different woman, with judges warning of “marked cognitive distortion” and a high risk of reoffending.
• Legal and psychology experts interviewed say offenders driven by romantic or sexual fixation should face probationary supervision and ongoing counseling, noting current referral efforts lack coercive power and resources.