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The property in Noda, Chiba Prefecture, where the body of Kenzo Ando was found after his house burned down on May 15. (Mainichi)

The parking lot in Fujimi, Saitama Prefecture, where the body of Yoshiyuki Oide was found in a rental car on Aug. 6. (Mainichi)

Police have begun to piece together suspicious details in the deaths of two men in Saitama and Chiba prefectures, both of which appear to be connected with the mysterious actions of one 34-year-old Tokyo woman.

All the men died in either private rooms or in cars, in circumstances for which definitive proof will be hard to come by. However, as police dig deeper into the cases, the more they believe they have one large case on their hands.

"This is the first really big case in a while," said one senior investigator.

Police in Saitama and Chiba began to spot suspicious inconsistencies in each of the cases almost immediately.

In one case, on the morning of Aug. 6, 41-year-old Yoshiyuki Oide was found dead in a rental car in a parking lot in Fujimi, Saitama Prefecture, along with a small hibachi full of burned-down charcoal briquettes. The cause of death was listed as carbon monoxide poisoning.

At first, suicide was suspected. However, although the car doors were locked, police could not find the keys, and there was no lighter or matches in the vehicle, among other inconsistencies. Furthermore, Oide had withdrawn around 4.5 million yen from his bank account -- as yet still missing -- and written in his blog the day before that he was about to go on a pre-marriage trip, behavior inconsistent with plans for suicide, leading police to begin an investigation.

Meanwhile, police in Noda, Chiba Prefecture, uncovered suspicious elements surrounding the burning death of 80-year-old Kenzo Ando. His body was discovered on May 15 after his house burned to the ground, along with a hibachi and charcoal briquettes. However, during the autopsy the coroner found traces of sleeping medication in his system.

Police in Saitama identified the Tokyo woman as Oide's "fiance," who told police that the couple had "eaten home-made beef stew at my apartment. After that we left, but had a fight and broke up in the parking lot. Maybe he killed himself out of shock."

When investigators checked the woman's bank account, they found a number of men had made large deposits. Two such men in Nagano and Shizuoka prefectures had made total deposits of around 3.2 million yen in September after the woman told them she wanted to marry them, but that she was in trouble because she didn't have enough money to pay for her university tuition, leading police to arrest her on suspicion of fraud. She was arrested again on Oct. 21 on suspicion of attempted fraud after it was discovered she had further swindled men in Nagano and Saitama prefectures out of another 2.1 million yen.

Meanwhile, Chiba police found that the same woman had withdrawn cash from Ando's bank account, and that she had visited Ando's home on the day of his death as a nursing helper.

Some time after both the Saitama and Chiba prefectural police had begun their investigations, it was realized that they were investigating the same woman. The police forces are now conducting a joint inquiry, and are assembling a case for murder against the woman.

At the heart of the case is the death of Yoshiyuki Oide, as the woman was with him the night before his body was found, and the charcoal briquettes in the rental car with his remains were of the same type the woman had bought in bulk. Furthermore, sleeping medication detected in Oide's body matched that prescribed to the woman. Police are also timing their inquiries to best match the ongoing attempted fraud investigation.

However, if the police assemble a case for murder against the woman, she would be tried under the new lay judge system, which presents some considerable hurdles.

"It reminds me of the murder trial of Masumi Hayashi, who was condemned to death in the 1998 curry poisoning case in Wakayama Prefecture," says a senior investigator. "This woman may not want to confess, and prosecutors will have to sway the lay judges by building up circumstantial evidence."

Chiba police plan to question the woman about Ando's death once police in Saitama have concluded the first stage of their investigation.

In addition to Oide and Ando, the woman had connections to a number of other men who have died, though what involvement she may have had is currently unknown. Cases include the August 2007 death "from disease" of a 70-year-old man in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, and an apparent suicide of a 53-year-old man in Ome, Tokyo, in February this year.

The man in Matsudo made a number of payments to the woman totaling about 74 million yen, while the man in Ome was apparently dating the woman, and had deposited money into her account. In his apartment, authorities also found a hibachi and charcoal briquettes.

No autopsy was ordered in either case, and progress in any investigation into the two deaths looks to be difficult.

"The woman's statements will be key," said a top Metropolitan Police Department official working on the case in Ome. "If we receive a request from Saitama police, we can move ahead with an investigation into the details of how the woman began seeing the deceased, and where the charcoal came from."