Police issued a fresh warrant on the 20-year-old boyfriend of an 18-year-old Tokyo girl who was found frozen in a forest in Tochigi Prefecture in March, suspecting that he killed the girl, officials said Wednesday.
Daiki Tsurumura, a construction worker in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward, is currently on trial for traffic violations and other charges.
Tsurumura was the boyfriend of the girl, a senior at a public high school in Edogawa Ward, whose frozen body was found in March in the village of Kuriyama in the prefecture.
Initially, it was not clear if she had been slain or had committed suicide. A subsequent autopsy, however, turned up marks on her neck that indicated someone may have tried to choke her, suggesting suicide was probably not the cause of death, police said.
Police suspected Tsurumura's involvement in the girl's death because he was with her until shortly before she died.
Tsurumura hit a pedestrian while driving his father's car on a street in Edogawa Ward on the night of March 2 and fled the scene, police alleged. He left Tokyo and arrived at a hot springs hotel in Kuriyama with the girl.
After the girl's body was found, Tsurumura told police that he left her at a bus stop in the village. But he later confessed to killing the girl, saying that he wanted to commit "double suicide" with her because he thought the pedestrian he had hit was dead, police said.
Police quoted Tsurumura as saying that when he realized he could not kill himself, the girl was already dead.