LAPD Accuses Dead Japanese Exec in 2nd Murder Case
Closing a second murder case tied to the same Japanese businessman, Los Angeles police plan to announce today that former company president Kazuyoshi Miura is the prime suspect in the 1979 murder of 34-year-old dental receptionist Chizuko Shiraishi.
That concludes the case, because Miura, who was also accused of being involved in the 1981 murder of his wife, apparently committed suicide in October while awaiting trial in a conspiracy charge in his wife’s killing, reports the Los Angeles Times. The California case against Miura, which hasn’t sparked much public interest in the U.S., is high-profile in Japan, where his ongoing legal battle reportedly ignited a media onslaught similar to what O.J. Simpson has experienced here.
“Detectives allege that Miura was having an affair with Shiraishi and killed her two years before he ordered his wife’s slaying,” the newspaper writes. Both bodies were found near Los Angeles freeways.
As discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, Miura could not be tried in California for the murder of his 28-year-old wife, because he was cleared of her killing by a Japanese court in 1998. However, double jeopardy did not apply to the conspiracy charge, because he was never accused of conspiracy to commit murder in Japan.
However, Miura repeatedly denied killing anyone, and his lawyer, Mark Geragos, harshly criticized the LAPD for accusing a dead man of murder.
“I’ve heard of kicking a man when he’s down, but rarely when he’s dead,” Geragos tells the LA Times. “They unfairly hounded him when he was alive, and they have not let up with his death.”
