LOS ANGELES -- Police detectives will unveil "substantial and compelling evidence" Wednesday that the Japanese businessman who was found hanging in a jail cell about three months ago killed not only his wife but another woman as well.
Los Angeles Police Department detectives said Kazuyoshi Miura, 61, who was found hanging in a Parker Center jail cell on Oct. 10, was involved in the 1979 murder of Chizuko Shiraishi.
At the time of his death, the coroner's office said Miura killed himself. His lawyer, however, Mark Geragos, insisted that likely he was choked and beaten in his jail cell.
Deputy Chief Charles Beck, who heads the department's detective bureau, and detectives Rick Jackson and Richard Bengtson, will "discuss substantial and compelling evidence that lead them to their findings regarding Miura's responsibility for the murder. Detectives will announce there is sufficient evidence to close the case."
Miura was convicted in 1994 in Japan of murdering his wife Kazumi, but was later acquitted.
Kazumi was shot in the head near downtown Los Angeles in 1981, and then returned to Japan where she died the following year at age 28.
The shooting of the wife was preceded by the murder of Shiraishi by two years.
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According to the Los Angeles Times, there is a parallel between the two cases.
Miura had a business and personal relationship with Shiraishi, who died after receiving a $21,000 divorce settlement.
Over a two-month period after her disappearance, Miura gradually withdrew money from her bank account with her automated teller machine card and PIN number.
The Times quoted a detective as saying Miura kept changing his story about where she was.
