Police are guarding an evacuated Tokyo residence after its address was found on the second smartphone the police have seized in connection with a string of robberies in the Kanto region, police sources have told The Yomiuri Shimbun.
The robberies include the case of a 90-year-old woman in Komae, Tokyo, who was murdered on Thursday. The police were led to the homicide partly by the discovery of the victim's address on a smartphone seized earlier and used by a suspect in a separate robbery.
According to police, the first phone was used by a 23-year-old Self-Defense Forces member who was arrested over a robbery resulting in bodily injury that took place on Jan. 12 in Oami-Shirasato, Chiba Prefecture. When the Chiba Prefectural Police examined the phone, they found a message titled "work" on the Telegram messaging app that included the address of a residence and the times residents were there. Upon receiving the information on Thursday afternoon, the Metropolitan Police Department dispatched officers to the residence and found the body of the woman, Kinuyo Oshio.
