A 33-year-old man was arrested Saturday on suspicion of stabbing his former wife to death on the premises of her apartment building in the western Japan city of Amagasaki, police said.

Kyohei Morimoto has admitted to the allegations, saying, "I stabbed her with the intention of killing her," according to the police.

Photo taken from a Kyodo News helicopter shows police investigating the vicinity of the scene of a fatal stabbing of a 28-year-old woman in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, on Oct. 16, 2021.(Kyodo)

His arrest came a day after the 28-year-old victim, Sayaka Morimoto, was found lying face-down with multiple stab wounds to her back near a bicycle parking area of the building.

The police detained her former husband after finding a motor scooter with traces of blood parked at his apartment building, located about five kilometers from the crime scene.

Besides seizing his scooter, the police said they have also confiscated a blood-stained knife and clothes from the man's apartment.

The attack is believed to have occurred shortly before 8:20 p.m. Friday, when a delivery man called emergency services after finding her lying face-down in the parking area.

Security camera footage showed a man dressed in black entering a passage to the area shortly before the stabbing and later fleeing from the premises of the building, located along the city's Route 2, about 350 meters from Hanshin Electric Railway's Amagasaki Station in Hyogo Prefecture.


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Woman stabbed to death in western Japan, ex-husband questioned