Businessman’s Death Remains a Mystery : Crime: Investigators here and in Japan have no solid leads left to follow in the killing 6 months ago of Camarillo resident Yasuo Kato. They’re hoping for ‘a break.’

Stabbed twice in the heart, Japanese businessman Yasuo Kato was found dead six months ago today on the floor of his garage in Camarillo, leaving behind debts of $700,000 and a mystery no one has been able to solve.

If Kato’s slaying is solved at all, it will be solved in Japan, one law enforcement source said recently. Kato most likely was slain in a contract hit arranged by someone who knew him, the source said.

Sheriff’s detectives are not so sure, but said they are pursuing the hired-killer theory.

The fact that the jagged, 8-inch hunting knife slid sideways between Kato’s ribs and into his heart could have been an accident, said Lt. Kathy Kemp, head of the sheriff’s homicide division. But it also could have been the stroke of a professional killer, she said.

Yet, with no solid leads left to follow, Kemp said, Ventura County detectives and Tokyo investigators are no nearer to closing the case that shocked many Japanese citizens and stirred the fears of Japanese-Americans in Ventura County.

“There has been practically no change in the case for the past three or four months, almost since it happened,” Kemp said. “When you reach a certain point where you’ve exhausted all the leads, what you hope for is that you get a break.”

Detectives interviewed Kato’s neighbors, his business associates and his sons--Kiyoshi and Toshiyuki Kato--who also worked for his firm, Y & M Corp.

Toshiyuki Kato told The Times in March that, one week before he died, his father replaced him with his younger brother, Kiyoshi, as secretary of the real estate firm. Yasuo Kato made the change because Toshiyuki was preparing to leave the company, Toshiyuki said. However, after the elder Kato died, Toshiyuki stayed on to manage the company. He could not be reached for comment.

None of the detectives’ interviews led to a likely suspect, but as Kemp said last week, “No one at this point has been eliminated. Everyone is a suspect.”

Detectives traced the knife to its manufacturer and several sporting goods stores that could have sold it but found nothing leading to the person who bought it. Nor could they find any fingerprints on the weapon, which was found near Kato’s body, coated with dried blood.

They pored over records of real estate deals at Y & M.

The records showed that Kato took out $700,000 in loans through the company to buy three parcels of land in the Antelope Valley. He was unable to sell the land for housing lots when the bottom dropped out of the real estate market there in 1990, and the loans were coming due around the time of Kato’s death.

But investigators here and in Japan who examined Kato’s financial dealings found no strong motive for murder there, either.

Kato was killed with two clean, swiftly delivered stab wounds. Detectives said such an attack could have been the hallmark of an assassin for the yakuza , as Japanese organized crime is called.

But Kemp said Japanese investigators found no ties between Kato and the yakuza .

“We have not been able to substantiate or eliminate any of these theories,” said Kemp.

About the only theory that they have pushed aside is the first one that emerged--that Kato was killed by an anti-Japanese thug.

Toshiyuki Kato and his father’s housekeeper reported that two motorcyclists came to the door on Feb. 9 and tried to extort money from the elder Kato while blaming Japan for the U.S. recession.

“After my father pushed him out, the guy started kicking the door, screaming, ‘I’m going to kill you, I’m going to get you, I know where you live,’ ” Toshiyuki Kato said the day after his father’s death.

Detectives interviewed a door-to-door solicitor who had visited the house, but he passed a polygraph test and “came out clean,” said Lt. Joe Harwell, Kemp’s predecessor.

Kemp said detectives found “nothing that could be substantiated” in the Japan-bashing theory.

Other facts add to the mystery, Kemp said:

* There was no sign of forced entry.

* No blood was found on Kato’s hands, indicating he did not have time even to touch his wounds before collapsing. Kato was a martial arts champion who “could probably protect himself,” Kemp said. “Those things make you think perhaps it was a professional hit.”

But as for the theory that someone close to Kato hired the killer, Kemp said, “We tried to develop that lead, and it just dead-ended.”

Unless police get a break--such as a neighbor who suddenly remembers seeing a suspicious car or person near Kato’s home--the case probably will remain open, Kemp said.

She added, “We’ve followed pretty much everything we have.”

Kato’s old golf partner, Oxnard restaurateur Masahiro Kitazumi, said he does not think often about the slaying any more.

“I still contact Yasuo Kato’s son and family, but we don’t talk about the incident,” Kitazumi said Friday.

“I’m disappointed in the Police Department” for not solving his friend’s killing, he said.

But Kitazumi also said he understands the difficulties they face.

“This case is so complex,” he said. “The perfect murder--incredible.”