Jan 28 08:40 AM US/Eastern
(AP) - TOTTORI, Japan, Jan. 28 (Kyodo)
Police served a fresh arrest warrant on a woman Thursday on suspicion of killing one of three men believed to have died from foul play last year in Tottori Prefecture, the police said.
The Tottori prefectural police set up an investigative task force Thursday on the cases involving Miyuki Ueta, 36, a former snack bar employee in the city of Tottori.
Ueta is charged with robbery-murder as she is suspected of killing Hideki Maruyama, 57, an electric appliance dealer, who was found drowned in a river on Oct. 7, 2009, while evading about 1.23 million yen in payment to the victim for electric appliances she had bought.
Ueta was quoted as telling the investigators, "I don't know anything (about the allegations). I didn't do it."
In addition to Maruyama's death, the police also plan to look into whether Ueta was involved in the death of one of the two other men, Kazumi Yabe, 47, a truck driver whose body was found in the Sea of Japan off central Tottori Prefecture in November.
The third man -- 58-year-old Kazumi Taguchi -- was a resident of the same apartment building as Ueta. Taguchi died in October after being taken to a hospital.
Investigations showed that all of them tested positive for components of sleep-inducing agents, such as Halcion, and cold medicine.
The investigators have ruled out possible conspiracy by Ueta's 46- year-old male roommate over the murder of Maruyama, suspecting Ueta gave drugs to Maruyama, forced his face into the river and killed him on her own.
Ueta and her roommate were first arrested Nov. 2 on suspicion of fraud, and were served with several more warrants over fraud.
The roommate has told investigators that he, Ueta and Maruyama went to the Mani River in two cars on Oct. 6 but he left the scene, his lawyer said.
When the man returned to the river, only Ueta was there and her clothes were wet, he was quoted as saying.
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