Overview
- Aichi Prefectural Police transferred Kumiko Yasufuku, 69, to the Nagoya District Public Prosecutors Office on a murder charge related to the 1999 killing of Namiko Takaba.
- Investigators say a bloodstain collected at the apartment matches Yasufuku’s DNA, and she has acknowledged the allegation, telling police she injured her hand during the incident.
- Police had interviewed Yasufuku multiple times since summer; after initially refusing, she provided a DNA sample on October 30, the match was confirmed on October 31, and she was arrested the same day.
- Detectives narrowed thousands of contacts to several hundred during a case review; Yasufuku was a high-school classmate of the victim’s husband, and police are still probing motive and the sequence of events.
- The victim’s husband kept the apartment rented and unused for 26 years to preserve the scene, enabling new examinations including a suspect-attended walkthrough that broadly aligned with her account.