A deceased man police believed to be a potential suspect in a 1995 triple-murder at a suburban Tokyo supermarket due to a fingerprint found at the scene was elsewhere at the time of the crime, investigative sources said Thursday.
On Wednesday, sources said investigators had found that a partial fingerprint found on sticky tape left at the crime scene in Hachioji, Tokyo, in July 1995 was highly similar to that of the man who used to live nearby.
Three female part-time workers at the supermarket, two of whom were teenagers, were fatally shot at point-blank range during the apparent attempted robbery. The sticky tape was found wrapped around the teenage girls' hands and covering their mouths.
The sources said the man worked in the logistics industry and died about a decade ago. Records from his employer at the time and analysis of his relatives' DNA have cast doubt on the notion that he was the culprit.
Investigators found that the fingerprint was very like one from the man in a fingerprint database, the sources said.
Police had previously questioned the man as the owner of a white car like one seen near the scene immediately after the shootings.