Overview

• In Kobe, investigators say security cameras captured a man tailgating 24-year-old Megumi Katayama through an auto-lock door before an elevator struggle, with a bloodstained knife later recovered in a nearby parking lot for forensic testing.
• Hyogo police report blood on the apartment’s exterior stair handrail and witness accounts of a man descending the stairs, and they are tracking a suspect described as in his 20s to 30s who left on foot toward the north without covering his face.
• A judicial autopsy found Katayama died from hemorrhage due to multiple chest stab wounds that reached a lung, and police believe the attacker escaped on foot after the assault.
• In Hiroshima, police arrested Ken Motoda, 33, on suspicion of murdering his mother, 61-year-old Sumi Mochida, who was found bleeding at home and later died; Motoda is remaining silent as inquiries continue.
• In Tokyo, detectives re-arrested Seiichi Kita, 30, on suspicion of robbery-murder in the June killing of Soichiro Naruse in Shinjuku, alleging about ¥1.8 million and vouchers were taken, while Tochigi police separately sent a 2024 minor-abduction case involving Hiroki Kishinami to prosecutors.