Mikiko Kasahara was a twenty-one-year-old Japanese exchange student attending classes at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas, a town about fifty miles south of Austin. She had enrolled in the English as a Second Language program in the summer of 2000, and had been a full-time student since January of 2002. Her academic excellence had been recognized by an appearance on the institution’s Provost’s List in spring of the same year.
On the evening of December 14th, 2002, Mikiko hosted an end-of-term party for a group of her friends at her flat in the Sunset Terrace apartment complex. The party had run late, wrapping up near dawn at five a.m.
Approximately three hours after the guests left, firefighters were called to a blaze at Mikiko’s unit, and upon extinguishing the flames, discovered the student’s charred remains. Despite the state of the body, however, it was evident after the autopsy that Mikiko had not died in the fire, but had been strangled to death. There was also significant damage to her pelvis and signs of extensive blood loss, though it was difficult to determine what exactly had caused these injuries, due to the severity of the burns on the body. No alcohol or drugs were found in the victim’s system. Authorities surmised that whoever had attacked Mikiko had set the blaze in order to destroy evidence.
During a search through the scorched apartment, investigators found a still-functioning laptop, on which someone had accessed pornography featuring Asian women, at right around the time the murder would have occurred.
Authorities have been unable to come up with either suspect or motive in the case, but they are confident that whoever killed Mikiko most likely knew her. The investigation remains open.
Crime Immemorial 