Police Believe Murder Suspect May Be Hiding in Southland

Los Angeles police said Monday they are intensifying efforts to find Toru Sakai, a fugitive suspect in his father’s killing who detectives said may still be in Southern California.

Sakai, 22, has been sought by authorities in the United States and his native Japan since shortly after the body of his father, Takashi (Glenn) Sakai, 54, a wealthy international businessman, was found stabbed and buried in Malibu Canyon Feb. 10.

Toru Sakai has been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder and his mother, Sanae Sakai, 51, has been charged as an accessory to murder after the fact. Greg Meier, 21, a schoolmate of Toru Sakai’s, aided in the death plot but has been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for key information in the case, authorities said.

Detectives have alerted Southern California law-enforcement agencies that Sakai may still be in the area. At a press conference Monday, in which authorities asked for the public’s help in locating the young fugitive, detectives said they had no clues to his whereabouts but believed he may not have gone far from the Tarzana home he shared with his mother.

“All his friends live in this area,” said Detective Jay Rush. “We feel he might be able to blend in better here.”

Rush said Sakai, who is also known as Chris, was born in Japan but has lived all but one year in the United States. Though he speaks Japanese, authorities are unsure whether he reads or writes it and therefore might be hampered in an effort to live unnoticed in Japan.

Detectives said they had confiscated Sakai’s passport during the yearlong investigation and that Sakai would therefore have had to use a false document to get to Japan. Detectives also said he may still be in this area because he is relying on his mother for financial support. Sanae Sakai’s attorney, Scott S. Furstman, has denied that she has had any contact with him.

Police allege that money was the motive for the murder. Takashi and Sanae Sakai were involved in a divorce dispute in which more than $2 million in property was at stake. Police said Toru Sakai sided with his mother and committed the murder in April, 1987, to ensure that he and his mother would retain all the family’s wealth.

Police said that Toru Sakai and Meier, both musicians and UCLA and high school classmates, dug a grave in Malibu Canyon on April 10, 1987, and, 10 days later, Toru lured his father to a home in Beverly Hills where he was stabbed to death. The home, which rented for $12,000 a month, was vacant at the time and under the management of Sanae Sakai’s real estate renovation and management company, officials said.

After the killing, according to police, the body was put in Toru Sakai’s Porsche and driven to Malibu Canyon and buried. It was not discovered until nearly a year later when Meier had been granted immunity and told police where it was, police said.