Jung-hyun Park allegedly strangled wife to death

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department arrested Jung-hyun Park on charges of homicide on Tuesday. The 41-year-old Park is the assistant editor-in-chief of Kodansha's Morning magazine, and a former editor of Kodansha's Bessatsu Shonen Magazine .

According to the police's Criminal Investigation Division, Park allegedly strangled his wife, 38-year-old Kanako Park, to death in the early morning of August 9 last year at their Sendagi home in the Bunkyō ward of Tokyo. At around 2:45 a.m. that same morning, Park called emergency services and told them that when he arrived home, he had found his wife collapsed at the bottom of the stairs near the first floor entrance to their home. She was rushed to the hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

In a statement that Park made after the death of his wife, he claimed that his wife had killed herself, but an autopsy allegedly found signs of strangulation on Kanako's neck. The police report said that a video from a nearby security camera had no evidence that another person had entered the area. The entire family, including the wife and four children, were home at the time of the incident.

Kodansha issued a statement after the Tuesday arrest, saying that "[Park] maintains his innocence. We await the results of the investigation and are dealing with [this incident] with the utmost caution."

Sources: Tokyo Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, The Mainichi Shimbun, NHK News Web, NTV News 24

Photograph from Tokyo Shimbun