NAHA, Okinawa Pref. -- The mother of pop singer Namie Amuro was slain Wednesday morning on an Okinawa road in what police suspect may have been a murder- suicide involving the younger brother of her widowed husband.
Emiko Taira, 48, was struck head-on by a car while strolling with her husband along a road near National Highway No. 58, in Ogimi-son, northwestern Okinawa Prefecture, at around 10:40 a.m., the husband was quoted by police as saying.
The husband, whose name is being withheld, told police that the couple tried to hide behind a telephone pole to evade the car, it doubled back and struck the pole. The driver, identified as Kenji Taira, the victim's 44-year-old brother-in-law, then exited the vehicle wielding a hatchet-like object.