Asami’s murder investigation at ‘advanced stage’

JENSEN LA VENDE

YESTERDAY marked two years since Japanese pannist Asami Nagakiya was strangled and her body dumped under a tree at the Queen’s Park Savannah.

The killing, which took place between Carnival Tuesday and Ash Wednesday 2016, has remained unsolved and police say the investigation has reached an “advanced stage” but offered no further information.

Her unsolved murder has crippled her countrymen with fear and many of them have stayed away from the country this year.

Pan arranger Len ‘Boogsie’ Sharpe and Yoichi Watanabe, a Japanese who teaches music technology and audio engineering at the University of TT (UTT) told the Newsday that the number of Japanese pan players visiting this year have depleted compared to previous years. Prior to Asami’s murder, when her body was found in the savannah on Ash Wednesday in 2016, it was a common sight to see dozens of Japanese in the country, first to participate in the Panorama competition and then to play mas on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. In 2016, Asami played in the band All Stars. This year, only one Japanese national has been registered to play in Boogie’s Phase II Pan Groove pan side in the Panorama. Last year, two Japanese nationals visited TT for Carnival.

A close male companion of Nagakiya was questioned and released along with two women and another man. Nagakiya, 30, and the man were very close police said then and he was not a suspect but someone of interest in the killing. The two reportedly had a falling out over which Carnival band to play in on Carnival Monday but that was resolved by Tuesday.

Police said then when her body was first discovered it appeared that she had died of natural causes, as there was one small abrasion on her chin. However, 24 hours later, the marks of violence surfaced and it was clear that she was murdered.

Her autopsy concluded that she was manually strangled. Officers said around the woman’s neck and chest were several black and blue markings, suggesting she came to a violent end with little or no resistance, as she had no defensive wounds and beneath her nails there was no evidence of tissue from her killer.