A woman in a photograph smuggled out of North Korea is likely to be Teruko Kase, who disappeared in Chiba Prefecture some 40 years ago, according to a preliminary expert examination.
Analysis conducted by Masatsugu Hashimoto, an assistant professor at Tokyo Dental College, suggests Kase is the woman in the photo and therefore may have been abducted by North Korea.
Kase went missing in the town of Unakami, Chiba Prefecture, in April 1962, after leaving home for a beauty parlor, according to the Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea, a private group involved in the abduction issue.