A 24-year-old woman was fatally stabbed in an apartment building in Kobe on Wednesday evening, with police searching for a male suspect who fled the scene.
Hyogo Prefectural Police said they received an emergency call at around 7:20 p.m. on Wednesday that a man and a woman were fighting inside an elevator, and that the woman screamed.
Officers arrived at the scene to find Megumi Katayama, a company employee who lived on the building’s sixth floor, lying in front of the elevator with blood streaming from her upper body. She was rushed to a hospital but was pronounced dead there.
Surveillance footage showed Katayama returning home alone, followed shortly after by a man dressed in a black short-sleeved shirt and black trousers, police said. A resident reported witnessing the man restraining Katayama inside the elevator.
Investigators believe the victim was stabbed with a knife-like object, although no weapon has been recovered. Authorities are treating the case as a homicide and are searching for the suspect, believed to be in his 20s or 30s.
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