A 54-year-old Japanese man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering an ex-music idol.
Police in Fuchu arrested Akira Ishikawa on February 3 for killing a 24-year-old former idol called Sana Hirabayashi at a hotel in the city in the west of Tokyo by stabbing her neck.
Security camera footage captured the two entering the hotel at 2 a.m. on the morning of February 2. Ishikawa then left alone about four hours later. The hotel became concerned when Hirabayashi had still not emerged from the room by 1:30 a.m. on February 3 and couldn’t be contacted. They called police, who found her in the room, naked and dead from stab wounds.
Ishikawa was not difficult to locate. He was at his condo about a kilometer from the hotel. He had Hirabayashi’s ID on him when police searched his possessions, as well as a blood-stained knife.
He admits killing her, according to media reports, saying he stabbed her three times in the neck while she was sleeping.
Hirabayashi comes from an affluent family of doctors. After graduating high school, she joined an underground (chika) idol group as a singer and started performing. This fledgling career, however, only lasted a few months. She then focused on doing cosplay shoots.
She and Ishikawa had met several times, though the exact circumstances under which they met and Ishikawa’s motivations for murdering her are still under investigation, though it seems that he believed they were lovers or partners.
