Widow charged over alleged murder of Japan's 'Don Juan'

The young widow of an ageing Japanese real estate mogul was charged Wednesday with murdering the self-described "Don Juan" just months into their marriage, local media said.

Kosuke Nozaki, who boasted in his autobiography of spending millions of dollars on young, beautiful women, died in 2018 of acute poisoning aged 77.

His widow Saki Sudo, now 25, allegedly killed Nozaki by making him take a large amount of an unspecified stimulant. Some reports said it had been mixed into a drink, as no needle marks were found on his body.

Local media said prosecutors would rely on evidence from Sudo's phone that showed she had searched for information about stimulants and how to make a murder look less suspicious.

There was no official confirmation of the charges against Sudo.

Nozaki, who ran a real estate business, liquor sales company and money-lending enterprise, claimed in his best-selling autobiography that he had spent three billion yen ($27.5 million) on wooing 4,000 women.

"The reason I make money is to date attractive women," he wrote in the 2016 book titled "Don Juan of Kishu", after the region in western Japan where he lived.

"I have no interest in cars or houses. Instead, I have a boundless desire to have sex with beautiful women," he said in the book, which also included chapters on how to seduce college students and cabin crew.

Nozaki built his fortune from nothing, selling everything from metal scraps to condoms to liquor, according to the website of the book's publisher.

In his will, he said he wanted to donate 1.3 billion yen to the city of Tanabe in Wakayama prefecture, where he had lived.

But because half of his estate goes to his widow under civil law, the city had been in talks with Sudo about splitting the money, the Sankei Shimbun reported.

In a column Nozaki wrote for the Gendai Business website in 2018 -- months before his death -- he said he was "confident of becoming happy" by marrying Sudo, even though people had warned him she was probably after his money.

© 2021 AFP