Baba -- who has been in trouble with the law before, having done time for
stealing 18 million yen and going on a months-long spree in various brothels --
is accused of killing he young love hotel worker after a night on the tiles
together.
Baba and Abe left work together just after midnight on Feb. 5. Baba usually
worked until morning, but he left with the woman 12 years his junior, telling
his employers he had something on at his child's school early the following
morning and that he needed to go to bed.
What he actually did was head off with Abe in tow to a convenience store, a
restaurant and finally a karaoke joint, where they belted out songs together
until 5 in the morning.
"They were there for about an hour, drinking and singing. The woman looked
pretty drunk," an employee of the karaoke establishment tells Shukan Asahi.
"When we told them we were shutting up for the night, the guy told us where to
go and whined and moaned before finally paying the bill and leaving."
It was 5:15 a.m. and Baba and Abe hopped into a nearby taxi, the driver noting
the time they got in. They headed off into the outskirts of Kawasaki, where
there are three decrepit, grimy love hotels surrounded by rice paddies and
small groves.
"The guy didn't tell me exactly where to go, just said things like 'straight
ahead,' 'left' and 'right,' and we ended up near the love hotels. They were
speaking pretty openly, and it looked like the woman was going to one of those
places for the first time," the taxi driver says. "We got to one place and the
guy got out of the taxi. The woman kept saying 'No way, no way,' over and over
again and refused to get out. The guy got back and told me to drive off again.
We went for a few hundred meters and the guy told me to stop again. This time,
they both got out, he paid the 800 yen fare and I drove away."
An autopsy revealed Abe died not long after. Her body was found in a rice paddy
near the love hotel not long after midday the same day. She was naked from the
waist down, and her purse and underpants were found near her body.
Baba and Abe were both married to other people and each had children of their own. Baba was arrested the day after Abe's body was found, Shukan Asahi notes, and has since been charged with her murder.
