“A Serious, Well-Liked Salesman”: The “Dual Personality” Displayed by the Suspect in the Nara Mother-Daughter Body Dumping Case

He drove the two people to the site and abandoned them

In connection with the body abandonment case in the mountains of Nara City, Nara Prefecture, the Mie Prefectural Police identified the previously unidentified body on July 31 as Rion (20), the eldest daughter of Sonomi Ikeda (44) of Iga City, Mie Prefecture, following the identification of her mother.The arrested suspect, office worker Takahiro Imakita (37), is alleged to have been having an affair with Sonomi despite being married.

The case took a turn in May of this year, triggered by a request from Iga City to the police to confirm the safety of Ms. Ikeda and her daughter. As the Mie Prefectural Police investigated, they discovered that the mother and daughter had been missing since early February of this year.

“We have confirmed that the mother and daughter were with suspect Imakita on February 9. At that time, the mother, Sonomi, was preparing to file a police report with the prefectural police regarding another suspicious incident. However, starting the next day, the 10th, we lost contact with both of them.”

The police carefully questioned suspect Imakita, whose name had come up as a romantic partner.Although Imakita had a wife and three children, he was frequently seen coming and going from the Ikeda residence, and is believed to have been continuing an extramarital affair with Sonomi. Then, on July 17, during questioning, Imakita began making statements to the effect that ‘I put the two of them in my car, drove them away, and abandoned them’” (Social Affairs Reporter for a National Newspaper).

Acting on his statement, police searched a grassy area along the Nabari River near Tsukigase Oyama in Nara City and discovered the bodies of two women wrapped in plastic sheets. The prefectural police immediately arrested Suspect Imakita on suspicion of abandoning a corpse and established a special investigation headquarters.On July 18, they identified one of the victims as Sonomi Ikeda, and on July 31, they officially announced that the other victim was her eldest daughter, Rion.

While he is alleged to have caused the mother and daughter—with whom he had been in a romantic relationship—to go missing and then abandoned their bodies, how was Suspect Imakita viewed by those around him at his workplace?

Suspect Imakita worked in delivery and sales at a company selling nursing care supplies headquartered in Iga City. The victim, Ms. Ikeda, had used a wheelchair at one point in the past and reportedly met Suspect Imakita through the process of arranging for such equipment.

He vented his frustrations about his wife

A person who had done business with suspect Imakita described his impression at the time as follows.

“We exchanged business cards, but he didn’t seem suspicious or odd in the slightest. When speaking with him, he responded promptly and clearly—I got the impression he was an extremely professional salesperson. He was also very thorough in his business communications.”

A man in his 40s who works in the same industry as Suspect Imakita and has worked with him several times had this to say:

“He gave the impression of being serious about his work and was a cheerful person who always arrived on time for meetings and such. Even though we were competitors, he would casually strike up conversations with me, and we went out to eat together a few times.Whenever we tried to take a group photo with the front-facing camera on a smartphone, he would be the first to pull out his phone to take the picture or make funny faces to lighten the mood. However, his marriage didn’t seem to be going very well; I saw and heard him vent his frustrations about his wife on several occasions.”

People who knew Suspect Imakita in the past also describe a personality that stands in stark contrast to the brutality of the crime.

A man who knew the suspect from his vocational school days recalls him as follows:

“We were in the motorcycle specialty program, and he was a senior one year ahead of me. We knew each other by sight and would chat casually. I remember he competed in races on his own and achieved decent results.At school, he never intimidated or took his frustrations out on younger students, and I never saw him act violently as has been reported. He wasn’t the type to lose his temper easily, and I never heard any stories about him having a wild social life with women.”

The joint special investigation team of the Mie and Nara Prefectural Police is now intensifying its interrogation of the suspect regarding his actions immediately following February 9—the day Ms. Ikeda was preparing to file a police report regarding the incident—as well as the specific sequence of events leading to the deaths of the mother and daughter, the causes of death, and whether there were any romantic entanglements stemming from an extramarital affair.

Behind his seemingly diligent work ethic lay an extramarital affair, and the sudden disappearance of the mother and daughter. Investigators are expected to shed light on the suspect’s dual nature and the motive behind the incident.