On May 4, 1979, a boy walking his dog in a field near the 210 Freeway discovered a corpse hidden amid trash and debris.
For years, she was Jane Doe No. 88. Officials didn't know whether she had been murdered, had committed suicide or somehow had died of natural causes.
About the same time in Japan, family and friends awaited word of Chizuko Shiraishi. The 34-year-old dental receptionist had vanished while visiting Los Angeles at about the same time.
It took half a decade, but Los Angeles Police detectives eventually determined that Jane Doe No. 88 was Shiraishi.
And after much investigation by cold-case detectives, they will announce today that her death was a homicide and that the prime suspect is Japanese businessman Kazuyoshi Miura.
Her death is the second homicide detectives have tied to Miura, who died last October; authorities said he hanged himself in a downtown LAPD jail cell. Miura had been extradited to Los Angeles for trial on a conspiracy charge related to the killing of his wife.
Detectives allege that Miura was having an affair with Shiraishi and killed her two years before he ordered his wife's slaying.
Police said they still don't know exactly how Shiraishi died. But they accused Miura of enlisting another man to kill his wife, Kazumi Miura, near a downtown Los Angeles freeway in 1981. They said his motive was to collect his wife's $650,000 life insurance policy.
The LAPD's cold case squad has been investigating Shiraishi's death for several years. Because Miura is dead, detectives cannot bring a case against him. But they have produced a report highlighting evidence and declaring their strong suspicion that Miura was responsible for her death.
Miura had repeatedly denied killing anyone. His attorney, Mark Geragos, lashed out at the LAPD for trying to convict a man who can't defend himself.
"I've heard of kicking a man when he's down, but rarely when he's dead," Geragos said. "They unfairly hounded him when he was alive, and they have not let up with his death."
Shiraishi arrived in Los Angeles from Tokyo in March 1979 on a 30-day tourist visa. In Japan, she had worked as an accountant for Miura's company before taking a job as a receptionist in a dental office, according to LAPD records. Detectives later learned that she and Miura lived together in a Tokyo apartment.
