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American man arrested for abandoning body of woman found in Kanagawa bay

Kyodo

YOKOHAMA – Police arrested an American man Thursday on suspicion of abandoning the body of a woman found last week in a cove in Miura, Kanagawa Prefecture.

Gregory Joseph Gumo, 41, who lives in Yokohama and says he is unemployed, allegedly abandoned the body of Mariko Akitaya, 42, from Tokyo, on or around July 28 in Koajiro Bay. He has denied the allegation, the police said. Akitaya was identified through DNA testing.

A local resident found the body of the woman, who was wearing a dress, floating in the cove around 20 to 30 meters offshore on July 29. The body was wrapped in a sheet, bound with rope and had a piece of concrete attached.

As an autopsy found water in her lungs, police suspect Akitaya was thrown into the sea while she was alive.

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  • At Times Mistaken

    “American man arrested for abandoning body of woman found in Kanagawa bay” is kind of a roundabout way to say “Cops arrest American for dumping dead body in bay.”

    • jcbinok

      Ya, there’s a difference b/n abandoning and disposing of.

    • http://www.turning-japanese.info/ Eido INOUE

      “Cops arrest American for dumping dead body in bay.”

      The article says she was alive when she was thrown in the water — lungs full with water, meaning she drowned because she was wrapped up and linked to weights to try to (unsuccessfully) sink the body — suggesting the murderer thought she was dead but she was actually unconscious.

      • http://www.turning-japanese.info/ Eido INOUE

        And if that is indeed the case, and he is found guilty of murder, that may qualify him for the death penalty. In Japan, hanging is usually reserved from multiple murders or a single homicide that is pre-meditated and cruel.

        If that happens, it’ll be one for the history books: he’ll be the first American executed in modern Japan.

      • At Times Mistaken

        I stand corrected. Definitely not “dead” then.

      • John Doberman

        How does this suggest that he thought she was dead already? You are making the suggestion. Were you there? Quite possible but if true it would mitigate a murder charge. Is that your intention?

      • S. Urista

        It’s an interesting point that could see him avoid the death penalty. It’s going to be very hard to prove he *knew* she wasn’t dead when he threw her body into the water.

        He could deny pre-meditation, and simply pull a play out of the Casey Anthony playbook – it was an accident / self-defense, he panicked and tried to hide the body, etc etc.

      • John Doberman

        Exactly.

        Unless there is concrete evidence
        (forgive the pun)
        That he indeed purchased this brown sheet and rope before she was last.seen alive.

  • http://www.turning-japanese.info/ Eido INOUE

    Some details not in this article: he was caught on surveillance camera with her at the scene of the crime. They caught up with him and stopped him at Haneda Airport Departures, where he was suspected of trying to flee to America.

    Married with three kids, it is suspected that he met her on the internet and was trying to conceal an affair with her.

    Bouncing around Singapore, Bangkok, and Japan with various non-permanent English teaching/proofreading jobs, he publicly claimed to be a entrepreneur / angel investor / it consultant / social media expert.

    • Audie Bakerson

      “social media expert”?

      This guy really is San Francisco incarnate.

  • lou

    He scam me & a friend for a large amount of money. Hes gonna get what he deserves.

  • Simon Scott

    I am a Tokyo-based journalist currently researching a story for The Japan Times about the Mariko Akitaya case discussed in the story above.

    In particular, I am looking for any information about the main suspect, American Gregory Joseph Gumo, who had been living in Yokohama prior to his arrest. I am of the understanding he had also lived in Hong Kong and Singapore in recent years.

    Please send me an email if you know him, have any information about him, or know of someone else who may be able to help. My email is: rotty007@gmail.com

    All communications will be treated as strictly confidential and off the record. Any assistance or information, no matter how small, would be greatly appreciated!

    Regards,
    Simon Scott.