Man admits to more 'suicide pact' murders

A Japanese man arrested for murder after luring his victim by proposing a suicide pact has confessed to two similar attacks.

Hiroshi Maeue, 36, was arrested last Friday in the death of Michiko Nagamoto, a 25-year old-woman he met on a suicide Web site, the Japan Times Online and Kyodo News Service reported. The two met in February after exchanging over 20 e-mails for months.

When they met, Maeue led Nagamoto to a vehicle where she apparently believed they would kill themselves. He then suffocated her, Japanese police said.

The e-mails and a rental car contract led investigators to Maeue.

Maeue's additional confessions led police to two other bodies in the mountains of southern Osaka Prefecture. The victims -- a 14-year-old male junior high school student and a 21-year-old male college student -- are believed to have been lured and killed in the same way.

Police said Maeue gets "sexually excited" seeing his victims suffocate to death. He has been arrested on numerous occasions for attacking passers-by, and spent 10 months in prison in 2002.

© Copyright 2005 by United Press International