A 54-year-old Japanese woman has been arrested for allegedly locking her naked partner out on the balcony overnight, leading to his death three years ago.
The woman, identified by local media as Miho Tsumura from Isahaya, was arrested on suspicion of assault and lethal confinement, police in the Nagasaki region said.
The reason for the delayed arrest was not immediately clear.
The woman forced the victim onto their balcony without his clothes in February 2022 and prevented him from getting back in, a local official, Masafumi Tanigawa, said.
She ordered the victim, her common-law spouse, to get out on a balcony while he was naked and “confined him there”. The next day, police responded to an emergency call and discovered the 49-year-old man “nearly dead” in a room, Mr Tanigawa said.
According to prefectural police, Ms Tsumura called the emergency line at around 6.25am on 7 February 2022, reporting that the man was unresponsive.
When police arrived, they found him lying dead in a room, completely naked.
Police say the victim had been forced to spend the night on the balcony of the woman’s second-floor apartment in Hasami on the night of 6-7 February 2022.
He succumbed to hypothermia as temperatures dropped to 3.7C in Sasebo, a nearby city, according to data from the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Police said on Friday that the woman had previously attacked her partner with a knife, causing injuries that took two weeks to heal.
An autopsy revealed a cut wound on the man’s nose. Prefectural police were investigating whether the suspect had subjected the victim to ongoing violence.
The woman denies the charges. “I have done nothing,” Mr Tanigawa quoted her as saying.
