Kyoto ‘black widow’ faces third arrest for Kobe poisoning

OSAKA (TR) – Osaka Prefectural Police said on Thursday that they plan to apply fresh charges to a Kyoto woman already in custody for the murder of two men with whom she had a relationship, reports the Sankei Shimbun (June 11).

Police will charge Chisako Kakehi, 68, who has been arrested twice since November for allegedly poisoning a former husband in Kyoto and boyfriend in Osaka, in the attempted murder of Toshiaki Suehiro, a 78-year-old male acquaintance.

In December of 2007, Suehiro consumed a beverage which, police allege, was laced with hydrocyanic acid by Kakehi. He later collapsed on a street near JR Motomachi Station in Kobe. In June of 2009, he died in a hospital. According to police, the motive for the crime was to avoid paying a debt of 40 million yen that resulted from an equity investment.

Described as a “black widow,” Kakehi has been married four times. She has had relationships with multiple men who died under mysterious circumstances over the past 10 years. News outlets have reported that she received up to one billion yen in inheritance following the deaths of the various men.

In 2013, Kakehi’s husband, Isao, 75, died after collapsing in his home in Muko City, Kyoto. The year before, her common-law husband, 71-year-old Masanori Honda, died after he crashed his motorcycle in Osaka. In both cases, cyanide was discovered in the systems of the victims.

Kakehi has admitted to the murder charged in the two cases. She has also hinted at involvement in the deaths of six other men, including the man in Kobe.