Elevator Murder Case Takes A Darker Turn As Chilling, New Details Emerge
A 35-year-old man has been arrested for the murder of a 24-year-old woman who was stabbed to death inside her apartment building in Kobe, Japan, on August 20. Now, new details about the suspect have been released.
On August 22, police arrested Tanimoto Masashi, who can be seen following the victim, Katayama Megumi, in security camera footage. Tanimoto began following Katayama after she left her office at around 6:30 p.m. on August 20. On her way home, Katayama boarded a train, stopped by a post office, and visited a shop, all while Tanimoto trailed her. Katayama arrived home at about 7:20 p.m.
Security footage shows the suspect slipping inside Katayama’s secured apartment building behind her after she opened the door. While taking an elevator to the sixth floor, where her unit was located, Katayama was stabbed multiple times, including at least once in her chest.
While in police custody, Tanimoto confessed to stabbing the victim, telling investigators, “I don’t know if I had the intention of killing her, but there is no question I stabbed her once or twice.” He also revealed that he and the victim didn’t know each other. Unlike Katayama, Tanimoto isn’t a Kobe resident. He had travelled to Kobe from Shinjuku on August 17, at the beginning of the five-day vacation he had taken from his company job.
According to the latest reports, Tanimoto crossed paths with Katayama on August 18, one day after he arrived in Kobe, and two days before the homicide. He told police that he saw Katayam walking on the street near her workplace, and he decided to follow her because she was his type.
For two days, Tanimoto waited for Katayama to come and go from her workplace while he loitered around the hotel where he was staying. Security footage also showed him following other women during this time. On August 17, a man believed to be Tanimoto followed one woman in her 20s in the same manner that he would follow Katayama on August 20; he slipped in behind her, into her apartment building. The unnamed woman told reporters that she noticed the man and instinctively felt that it would be dangerous to enter an elevator with him. Instead, she took refuge in the back of her building until the man left.
Details about Tanimoto’s past have also emerged. In 2022, he worked in Kobe at a construction company until he was arrested that year on suspicion of attempted murder. He received a suspended sentence for stalking a woman in her 20s, breaking into her apartment, and strangling her. In 2020, he broke Japan’s Stalking Prevention Act against another woman and was handed a summary order for the violation. Both of these women were strangers to Tanimoto.
