Missing Japanese student in France ‘probably suffocated

A Japanese student who went missing in eastern France in 2016 was probably suffocated in her university room by her fugitive Chilean ex-boyfriend, a prosecutor said yesterday. Narumi Kurosaki, 21, disappeared in the city of Besancon on the night of December 4, 2016 after having dinner with her ex, Nicolas Zepeda.

Local prosecutor Etienne Manteaux said that investigators believed that she had been killed, but determining the cause of death was difficult because her body has not been found despite extensive searches of a nearby forested area. No blood had been detected in her room in the university residence in Besancon where terrified cries and the sound of a physical struggle were reported by fellow students at around 3:30 am.

“Was it by suffocation? Probably. That doesn’t leave blood,” Manteaux told reporters in Besancon. He said that Zepeda, who had posted videos online threatening Kurosaki, had been jealous that she had started a new relationship with another man and was “more than ever considered the main suspect in this killing”. He also revealed that Zepeda had bought five litres of flammable liquid and matches at a supermarket days before Kurosaki disappeared and his hire car was returned covered in mud.

In their search for her body, police have focused their efforts on the vast Chaux forest area on the outskirts of Besancon, but have been unable to find any trace of the student. Zepeda, a teaching assistant aged in his mid-twenties, left France and returned to Chile shortly after Kurosaki was last seen dining with him in a restaurant a short drive from Besancon, a town in the foothills of the Alps mountains. He has admitted going to her room afterwards -- he claims for consensual sex -- but has denied responsibility for her disappearance.