Background
Narumi Kurosaki (黒崎 鳴海, ''Kurosaki Narumi'', 23 July 1995 – 5 December 2016) grew up in a family of three, along with her two younger sisters, Honami and Kurumi. From 2011 to 2014, she was a student at Tokyo Metropolitan Kokusai High School. Narumi was 21 years old when she arrived in France on 26 August 2016 to study at the University of Franche-Comté located in the city of Besançon. There she took French classes at the Center for Applied Linguistics before being able to join the Faculty of Economics in January. Narumi occupies a student room on the second floor of the Théodore Rousseau residence hall located on the La Bouloie campus. Nicolás Humberto Zepeda Contreras (born 11 December 1990) was born to a Chilean family of three children. His father, Humberto Zepeda, is one of the main executives of the telecommunications provider Movistar. His mother, Ana Luz Contreras, is an engineer works as a secretary to SenatorEvents
On Sunday, 4 December, 2016, Narumi went to her dance class as usual, leaving at around 4:00 PM. On the night between Sunday and Monday, at around 3:20 AM, about fifteen students from the residence where Narumi was staying heard screams followed by a thud. Rachel Hope, a British student, then wrote a message to a friend: "I'm scared, I heard a noise like someone was being killed." Another student, Nabil Drissi, went out into the hallway to see what's going on, but was not able to figure out where the sounds are coming from. The next day, her classmates were worried about not seeing her in class, claiming that the Japanese girl was never missing from class. Over the next few days, Narumi's family and friends receive messages from her phone via text and social media that she has a problem with her passport and needs to go to the Japanese consulate in Lyon. Her bank card is used on 6 December to buy a one-way train ticket to Lyon. On the other hand, all the train passengers who occupied seats close to the one assigned on her ticket claim not to have seen any young women resembling Narumi. Other messages still reach her relatives in the following days, indicating that she has a new boyfriend and that she is going alone. No more messages were received after 12 December. On December 14, the Besançon Center for Applied Linguistics alerted the police, who intervened in her room on December 15 in the late afternoon. Having quickly come to the conviction that the student's disappearance is concerning, the investigators initially suspect Arthur, Narumi's new boyfriend. During his interrogation, Del Piccolo mentioned Narumi's former Chilean lover, Nicolás Zepeda Contreras, whom he presents to investigators as a jealous and possessive man who had even hacked into his Facebook account. Initially, this element is not considered decisive given the geographical distance. But, thanks to the geolocation of Narumi's phone, the investigators discovered that she was in a restaurant on the night of 4 December and that the account had been paid with a Chilean bank card. In fact, on the night of Sunday, 4 December, Narumi Kurosaki and Nicolás Zepeda Contreras had dinner at La Table de Gustave restaurant, in the small town of Ornans located about twenty kilometers south of Besançon. A camera records them leaving the restaurant at 9:57 PM, and then, at 10:58 PM., other surveillance footage records their arrival at Narumi's college dorm. According to Zepeda's own testimony, the "screams" were in reality Narumi's moans, as the couple allegedly had sex for two and a half hours after arriving at her dorm. Zepeda was the last person to see Narumi alive. As of June 2022, Narumi's body has not been found.Investigation
Narumi's room inspection
The police enter room 106, Narumi's, on December 15 at 5:31 p.m. and find that she is perfectly tidy, although the Japanese student's friends point out that she is usually quite messy. Specifically, her only coat was found at the scene, when winter began, her laptop and her wallet with 565 euros in cash. As they take inventory of Narumi's belongings, they later realize that a blanket, a suitcase, her passport, and her phone are missing. The fingerprints, taken from a cup, after analysis will show that they belong to Nicolás Zepeda Contreras. From DNA reconstructed from fingerprints, investigators found traces of the suspect on a water bottle, a T-shirt, the walls, the bathroom floor and the edge of the sink. French police also found samples of the victim's blood on the emergency door, which was used by Zepeda as he exited the building.Digital data analysis
In response to Nicolás asking her to delete some of his contacts on Facebook, Narumi wrote him an SMS dated 5 September stating: "I will never delete Arthur". On September 7, 2016, Nicolás Zepeda published a video on Dailymotion in which he talks about his relationship with Narumi in disturbing terms: "She has to pay a little for what she has done and accept that she cannot continue making these kinds of mistakes with someone who loves her." He also specified in this video that "certain conditions are applicable during her stay in France, and others are applicable forever. If she cannot follow these conditions for two weeks, within two weeks, I will enforce these conditions with immediate effect."Witness testimonies
Juan Felipe Ramírez Contreras, cousin of Nicolás Zepeda with whom he was five days before his return to Chile, was auditioned on January 24, 2017. He gave several worrying details about the conversations they had during this stay. Nicolás Zepeda hides his meeting with Narumi in Besançon, explaining that he had simply come to Europe to participate in a congress in Geneva. Ramírez, being a medical student, was also asked by Zepeda about death by suffocation. His cousin also confessed that he was surprised by a phrase used by Nicolás Zepeda in which he spoke of Narumi in the past tense: “Narumi really ''liked'' the sea”.Judicial process
Extradition of the suspect
On Monday, May 18, 2020, the Chilean Supreme Court of Justice authorizes the extradition of Nicolás Zepeda Contreras to France. Placed under house arrest in Viña del Mar since the end of June, he was treated on July 23, 2020 by the Chilean Investigative Police (PDI) who transferred him to the Santiago de Chile airport to hand him over to the French authorities. After a flight to Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport that landed at the end of the morning of July 24, he was notified of the Interpol Circular of December 26, 2016 and was then transferred by car to Besançon where he arrived at around 4:40 PM. He was brought before the investigating judge who announced his murder charge, then before the liberties and detention judge, and finally he was imprisoned in the Besançon pre-trial detention center.Grand trial against Nicolás Zepeda
The trial against Nicolás Zepeda Contreras, called the "Grand Trial" by the French Ministry of Justice, began on 29 March 2022 before the Cour d'Assises (court) of the Doubs, in Besançon. The trial had an exceptional schedule given the international dimension of the case: all exchanges were subject to simultaneous translation by a team of six interpreters, three for Japanese and three for Spanish; three clocks marked the time in France, Japan and Chile to take into account the time difference, listening to many witnesses from abroad by videoconference, ten from Tokyo, two from Santiago de Chile and one from Scotland; In addition to the main courtroom, two other rooms are open so that journalists and the public can follow the debates broadcast on a giant screen. The suspect was defended by Maître Jacqueline Laffont, a lawyer from the Paris Bar Association (who notable defended the former President of the RepublicSee also
* List of solved missing person casesReferences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurosaki, Narumi, Murder Of 2020s missing person cases Deaths by person in France Female murder victims Incidents of violence against women Missing person cases in France Murder convictions without a body Violence against women in France 2016 murders in France 2010s missing person cases