A 30-year-old woman arrested on suspicion of burglary and murder in Yokohama told investigators that she agreed to collect stolen cash at the repeated urging of her husband, investigative sources said Tuesday.
Police allege the suspect, Miho Kimoto, was involved in the October murder of 75-year-old Yokohama resident Hiroharu Goto, who was found bound and beaten in his home, with around ¥200,000 (approximately $1,300) in cash stolen.
According to the sources, Kimoto claims she received instructions through an encrypted messaging app from the scheme’s mastermind whom she had been in touch with via her husband, who is now also under scrutiny by the Kanagawa Prefectural Police. Authorities are actively working to identify the individual who issued the orders.
"My husband asked me again and again (to collect the money) so I ended up taking the job," Kimoto reportedly told investigators.
After the murder, Mazuki Takarada, 22 — one of the suspects arrested in the case — allegedly removed a portion of the stolen cash as a payment to himself, leaving the rest in a public restroom in a Tokyo park for Kimoto to retrieve. While she reportedly collected the money, its subsequent whereabouts remain unknown.
Neighbors in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward, where Kimoto lived with her husband and two children, describe her family as appearing financially stable. “There didn’t seem to be any signs of financial struggle,” one resident said.
The murder took place around Oct. 15, when Goto was found with his hands and feet bound in adhesive tape, showing blunt-force injuries across his body. Police believe that two other suspects arrested in relation to the case — Shu Fujii, 26, and Rikuto Kubota, 21 — are also involved in another burglary and assault that occurred the same month in the city of Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture.
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