Marital Woes Cited in Slaying of Woman, Girl

A Torrance woman whose husband is accused of killing her and their daughter had planned to leave him and was searching for a place to live, a manager of the family’s gated community said Thursday.

Yuriko Kuno, 38, told the manager of Vitco Properties she was interested in the company’s other communities because she and her husband were separating, the manager said. She also complained about her husband bothering her at her work, he said.

“I remembered the name because she came in before all this,” said the manager, who declined to be identified.

Kazumi Taga, 50, owner of the automotive supply store Dason Marketing & Sales in Inglewood, is being held without bail on suspicion of killing Kuno and their daughter, 4-year-old Michelle, and dumping their bodies, bound together, in the Los Angeles Harbor.

His arraignment is scheduled for Oct. 16.

Police believe Kuno and Michelle were killed Sept. 7, the day they returned from a trip to visit relatives in Japan.

A diver discovered the bodies Sept. 21 while cleaning the hull of a boat next to Terminal Island. They were bound together face to face with a diver’s weight belt.

Detectives said that so far they have no motive. The district attorney’s office has not decided whether it will request the death penalty in his case.

Kuno and Taga, who moved into their three-bedroom, Spanish-style home in Torrance Gateway Estates in 1994, were a reserved couple, neighbors said.

Lidia Armenta, who lives across from Taga, said she frequently saw him taking his daughter for bike rides around the development, but that he rarely was friendly.

“He never spoke. My husband would say hello, and he wouldn’t respond,” she said. Armenta said she almost never saw Kuno.

The couples’ reserve seemed an anomaly in the estates, where residents organize barbecues at the community pool each summer.

“Everyone in here is pretty much friends,” said longtime resident Russ Johnson, who said he never knew Taga or Kuno.

Michelle, however, seemed to have had no trouble making friends. Several neighbors said they recalled seeing her zooming up and down the streets on her bicycle with their children.

“She was always smiling,” recalled Armenta. “She seemed like a really happy kid.”