Woman's corpse sent by courier mail in Tokyo

Tokyo, May 27: The police in Tokyo are investigating a strange case of a disappeared woman whose corpse was delivered via courier mail billed on her name, local media reported Tuesday.

According to the newspaper Asahi, Rika Okada, 29, was reported missing March 21 from the southern city of Osaka in Japan.

The body was discovered in a two-metre box at a storage locker in Hachioji city, 40 km west of Tokyo, the police sources said. The box, labelled "doll", was billed in her name and was delivered across the distance of over 400 km. The bill for the locker, from where the body was recovered, was also paid using her credit card.

The investigators discovered a dozen stabs on her body but did not find defensive wounds on her hands or arms, according to sources quoted by Asahi.

The investigators are analysing the transactions made from her credit card, that had recently shelled out around $1,000.

The police sources have suggested that the card could have been used to buy a Shanghai-bound ticket May 3, amid local media reports of the victim's card being used by another woman to leave the country.

Shortly before her disappearance, she had written on her Facebook page that she was going to meet an old friend whom she had not seen for many years.