Ibaraki Prefectural Police headquarters (Mainichi/Kotone Nirasawa)

       MITO -- Police served a fresh arrest warrant on Dec. 29 against a former employee at a nursing home on suspicion of killing a resident there by injecting him with air, following her arrest on Dec. 8 in connection with the alleged murder of another resident using similar tactics.

       Suspect Megumi Akama, 36, a resident of the Ibaraki Prefecture city of Koga, was working at Keyaki no Ie, a nursing home in the same east Japan city, at the time of the alleged murder. The investigation headquarters of Ibaraki Prefectural Police's Koga Station has not disclosed whether she has admitted to the allegations made against her.

       Akama is suspected of killing 84-year-old Kisaku Suzuki, a resident at the nursing home, by using a syringe to inject air into an IV tube connected to his right arm at around 3:30 p.m. on May 30, 2020.

       According to the investigation headquarters, Suzuki's cause of death was acute cardiovascular failure caused by an air embolism. Another employee had seen the suspect enter Suzuki's room alone shortly before his condition took a sudden turn for the worse. Akama was also reportedly the first person to report the sudden changes in Suzuki's condition.

       Suzuki's case, which was initially treated as death from illness, was not reported to police, and a judicial autopsy was not carried out. However, the hospital he was sent to had conducted a CT scan, and the investigation headquarters examined the images in detail. Based on this data and eyewitness information from the time of the incident, police determined that Akama carried out the murder by injecting air into Suzuki's body.

       Akama began working as a nurse at Keyaki no Ie in April 2020, and was in charge of looking after multiple residents including Suzuki. She was reassigned the position of care worker from June of the same year. She was arrested Dec. 8 for allegedly killing 76-year-old resident Setsuji Yoshida by injecting him with air on July 6, 2020.

       (Japanese original by Toru Morinaga and Minori Nagaya, Mito Bureau)

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