Japan police find body parts in murder linked to US suspect

Journalists gather near the site where a body part believed to be of a missing woman was found in Osaka, western Japan Monday, Feb. 26, 2018. Media reports said police last week arrested the suspected man, Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar, 26, from New York, on suspicion of confining the missing Japanese woman at his lodging in Osaka. Reports said Monday police are investigating his possible link to dismembering and abandoning of her body after finding other body parts. (Yuki Sato/Kyodo News via AP)

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese police said Monday they have found parts of a dismembered body believed to be of a missing woman in the mountains of western Japan, in a murder case reportedly linked to an American tourist.

Hyogo prefectural police said investigators found a torso, arms and legs in three locations in parts of Kyoto and Osaka on Sunday.

Police said the parts could be from the body of an unidentified woman who has been missing in the prefecture since mid-February. Local media said the woman was a 27-year-old office worker from Sanda City.

Police suggested that they searched the locations after being told about them by a suspect, but refused to elaborate. An examination of the body parts is being conducted to identify the victim, they said.

Kyodo News service and other Japanese media reported that police arrested a 26-year-old New Yorker as a suspect, but police would not confirm that. The reports said police also found the severed head of a woman inside a suitcase at his lodging in Osaka.

The reports said security camera video from the building showed him entering with a woman, but did not show the woman leaving. It showed the suspect going in and out with a suitcase, they said.  /muf