Tokyo, 16 October, /AJMEDIA/
A 28-year-old woman was stabbed to death on Friday in the compound of her apartment in the western Japan city of Amagasaki with a suspect apparently fleeing on a motor scooter, police said.
Sayaka Morimoto was found lying face-down with multiple stab wounds in her back near a bicycle parking area, an investigative source said, adding she and the suspect are believed to have known each other. A delivery man called an ambulance at around 8:20 p.m. saying that “a man possibly in his 20s or 30s is stabbing” the woman.
Morimoto, a medical clerk, was taken to a hospital but pronounced dead later, the police said, adding that no weapons were found at the crime scene.
According to the police, security camera footage showed a man dressed in black who was not wearing a helmet entering a passage toward the parking area shortly before the stabbing incident and later fleeing.
Local residents and others said large blood stains were seen in the passage, indicating Morimoto, believed to be living alone at the apartment, had been stabbed there.
The police said they have already seized a motor scooter with apparent traces of blood that is suspected of being used by the attacker.
Authorities believe Morimoto was attacked right after getting home, adding that a backpack containing her driver’s license and other items was found near the site.
The apartment is located along the city’s Route 2, about 350 meters from Hanshin Electric Railway’s Amagasaki Station in Hyogo Prefecture.