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.