Police in Japan Have Found a Severed Head Inside an American Tourist’s Rental Apartment

Police in Osaka have discovered a suitcase containing a Japanese woman’s severed head inside an apartment rented by an American citizen.

New York resident Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar, 26, was already in police custody on suspicion of “confining” a missing 27-year-old woman when police found the head, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reports.

He initially denied responsibility for the woman’s death but later told police that he had disposed of her body. Based on information supplied by Bayraktar, police recovered severed arms, legs, and a torso in a mountainous area near Osaka, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reports.

Two days before she was reported missing, the woman, who has not been named by Japanese media, had reportedly told friends she was going to visit an American she had met online.

A surveillance video reportedly shows her walking with a man believed to be Bayraktar near Osaka’s Morinomiya subway station. Another CCTV recording shows her entering the building where Bayraktar had rented a unit on Feb 16; there is no footage of her leaving.

Bayraktar, by contrast, was filmed leaving and returning to the building several times — on at least one occasion, he carried a travel bag. Sources cited by Kyodo said a large amount of air freshener had been used inside the apartment but no blood had been found.

Bayraktar arrived in Japan in January, apparently for sightseeing, Asahi reports. According to Kyodo, he had taken several other women to the same rental apartment — police say they are all accounted for.