The shocking behavior of a 35-year-old man who confined and assaulted a 24-year-old woman and dumped her body in a mountain

I dug a hole in the mountain with a man I was living with and buried him.

It was on January 18 that the woman who turned herself in at the nearest police station made a startling confession. As the woman explained, the police searched the area in the mountains that she pointed out. From the soil, they found a white-skeletonized body that seemed to have been dead for more than a year.

On January 24, the Tochigi Prefectural Police arrested Manabu Kaifu (35), an unemployed man living in Miyagi Prefecture, for dumping a body in the mountains of Shiraishi City. The suspect is said to have buried the body of an unidentified person in the mountains in December 2007.

The suspect had been living in an apartment in Sakura City, Tochigi Prefecture, with a female relative since the fall of 2007. Although the details of the incident are not known, Kaifu took the 24-year-old woman into his room and confined her. He assaulted her on a daily basis, beating and kicking her. The woman died in December of the same year. Kaifu allegedly carried the body in his car and dug a hole with a shovel in the mountains of Miyagi Prefecture, 160 km away from the apartment, and buried it.

The case came to light when a female relative who was living with him reported the incident to the Sakura Police Station in Tochigi Prefecture. In response to the investigation, the female relative stated that she decided to tell the police because it was something that would eventually come to light. The site where the body was dumped was on a steep mountain slope, where people rarely enter. However, a thin tree had been cut down and there were traces that seemed to have hidden the burial site.

Moving to a new house near the body dumping site

About six months after the incident, Kaifu moved to a new house. Surprisingly, he chose an apartment in Shiraishi City, Miyagi Prefecture, only six kilometers away from the mountain where the body was dumped.

It seems that Kaifu was living in Shiraishi City with his wife and young child. According to neighbors, he went out early in the morning and came back late at night, so they never had a chance to greet him. The suspect, Kaifu, was born and raised in the neighboring town of Zao, Miyagi Prefecture. I can’t understand why he would choose a place right next to the dumping site as his new home, no matter how attached he is to the place.

Why did Kaifu act in such a bizarre manner? Yasuhei Ogawa, a former detective with the Kanagawa Prefectural Police and a crime journalist, speculates.

He must have been afraid that the case would be exposed. It is a common practice for a murderer to bury the body of a murdered person on his own property. They can always check to see if they have been dug up or if there is anything unusual. There have been cases in the past where people have tried to bury the body under the building just before the completion of their house and seal it with concrete forever.

In this case, the suspect was probably not wealthy enough to build a single-family house and have a garden. That’s why he lived in an apartment near the crime scene; if it was only six kilometers away, he could drive there frequently to check on the suspect. I could see if the police were investigating. He probably planned to flee as soon as the investigation started.

However, the incident was exposed by a report from a relative of his. Mr. Ogawa continues.

I think the woman’s relative couldn’t bear the weight of the crime. Even though the crime she was involved in was not publicized, a person’s life was lost. If we keep quiet, the guilt and pain will increase with time. I guess he wanted to tell everything and feel a little better.”

The police are in a hurry to identify the white-skeletonized remains. The suspect, Kaifu, has not been identified.