The mother of a woman who died in 2004 in the apartment of an Osaka man arrested last week for allegedly confining and starving another woman will file a criminal complaint in an attempt to get police to reinvestigate her daughter's death, her lawyer said Tuesday.
The daughter, a 29-year-old hairstylist, was found dead in an emaciated condition at the apartment of Takuya Muramoto in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, in March 2004 by an ambulance crew who had been called by Muramoto.
Police suspected foul play but could not get Murano to confess. They then concluded she died from hypothermia.
Muramoto, 42, was arrested Aug. 3 on suspicion of confining, beating and starving a woman in his apartment from February to last month. He is also suspected of holding several other women captive during the past 11 years, including a woman and her child nine years ago.
The stylist disappeared from her employee dormitory in Nara Prefecture in September 2003 after telling her family she was going to live with her lover. Her mother asked Hiroshima Prefectural Police to search for her 10 days later.