Photo/Illutration A car transporting Hazel Ann Baguisa Morales, a Philippine national arrested in connection with a double slaying, leaves the Metropolitan Police Department’s Nishi-Arai Station in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward on Jan. 19. (Minami Endo)

Police investigating the slaying of a couple found buried under the floorboards of a house in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward believe a second person was likely involved in the case, investigative sources said.

Tokyo police on Jan. 19 arrested Hazel Ann Baguisa Morales, a Philippine national who lives in the ward, on suspicion of abandoning the corpses around Jan. 16.

The victims were identified as Norihiro Takahashi, 55, self-employed, and his wife, Kimie, 52. 

Morales, 30, has denied the allegations, officials of the Metropolitan Police Department said.

Morales and another person, believed to be a man, were separately caught by a security camera near the house that night, the sources said.

The sources added that the second person apparently later headed in the direction of Morales’ home about 500 meters away.

A blood-stained kitchen knife was discovered at the crime scene, the investigative sources said.

Both victims were stabbed in the left chest.

Earlier security camera footage showed Morales throwing away blood-stained clothes, presumably those of the victims, at a garbage collection site near her home with someone else, also believed to be a man, on and after Jan. 16.

The bodies of the Takahashis were discovered Jan. 18 beneath an underfloor storage area built in their home.

Investigators suspect that acollaborator likely helped Morales dump the bodies because of the physical effort required to move them deep under the floor by herself, the sources said.

The couple’s eldest son, who lived with his parents, contacted police on the evening of Jan. 16 after he returned home and found bloodstains in the house.

Police, citing security camera that showed the wife in the vicinity of her home, suspect the Takahashis were killed in the afternoon of Jan. 16.

Morales was previously in a relationship with the victims’ son, who is in his 30s.

The son had recently consulted police about a money problem the family was having with Morales, the sources said.

(This article was written by Yuji Masuyama, Minami Endo and Shomei Nagatsuma.)

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