The Case of the Japanese Analyst's Murder

In May 2021 an international police analysts conference was being held in New Delhi. 83 countries had sent one analyst each from their police forces to take part in this four day conference. Jeet Thakur Sahai was part of the group that was organizing this conference at the Ramesh Srivastava Conference Centre in east Delhi. All the participants stayed at the Radisson Hotel in the Yamunapur area about four kms. from the hotel.

The morning of the third day hotel staff went to Miko Tabayashi’s room as it was past 7 am and he had not woken up. He had told the hotel staff to send someone to wake him at 7 am as he was not a morning person. The past two days he woke up but not this morning. After waiting for more than 10 minutes the staff member then opened the door with the keys that he later got from the main office. Miko was laying on the bed dead. It seemed that he had been poisoned as there was a glass of orange juice on the floor that had broken into some pieces. The hotel’s staff contacted the local police. Inspector Madhur Tiwari was the lead investigator. Inspector Madhur informed the organizing committee of the conference and it was determined that Jeet would help with the investigation.

Inspector Madhur, Jeet and three constables reached the hotel and talked with the manager Ms. Shivani Sabarwal.

Jeet: “Ms. Shivani, we can get a list of all 83 participants and their room numbers, correct?”

Shivani: “Yes, I will have my assistant get that list for you. It shall take a few minutes.”

Inspector Madhur: “None of the 83 participants can leave the hotel for now. Please inform hotel security to work with the police constables to ensure that.”

Shivani: “Got it. That shall be done.”

Inspector Madhur called his forensics colleagues that would come to take Miko’s body for a post mortem. Shivani took Inspector Madhur and Jeet to Miko’s room (no. 442) so that they could further examine it.

Inspector Madhur and Jeet thoroughly searched the room. After about 32 minutes, Jeet was able to find a small paper hidden near the toilet bowl in the washroom. It was a crumpled piece of paper and only “Yuree Burn” was written on it.

Jeet went to a sofa in the waiting area of the fourth floor with this paper and thought about it for at least 20 minutes.

He then came rushing back to Inspector Madhur who was continuing with his search.

Inspector Madhur: “Soon we will have to start talking with all 82 participants as the 83rd one was killed.”

Jeet: “Yes, we can do that, but I have a strong hunch that I may know who did this.”

Shivani’s assistant brought the guest list and he carefully looked at it.

Jeet: “You took passport information from the participants because they were foreign nationals, correct?”

Shivani: “Of course.”

Jeet: “I think there may be individuals from Russia and Switzerland. We need their details so we can question them.” He told Inspector Madhur that he thought Yuree was a reference to Yuri, a Russian name, and Burn was a reference to Bern, Switzerland’s capital city. He thinks that Miko left this paper as a clue as he was suspicious of the Russian and Swiss participants.

Shivani told that the Russian participant, Aleksandar Gregov, and the Swiss participant, Robert Gedere, were in room numbers 514 and 632. Inspector Madhur took Aleksandar and Robert to the police station for questioning. They were questioned in separate rooms.

Jeet also asked them questions.

After about an hour of questions, finally Robert relented and told Jeet the truth. Two nights ago at the hotel’s gym Aleksandar and Miko had a friendly boxing match. Miko punched Aleksandar quite hard and Aleksandar fell. Miko apologized and Aleksandar said it was ok at the time. However, he was not glad about it as he felt humiliated when some other people saw him fall to the floor. Later Aleksandar went to Robert’s room and he said that he wanted to poison Miko. Robert was Aleksandar’s good friend and told him that they should not do that. However, Aleksandar was furious and he made up his mind. Robert decided to help him. The next night more than 20 participants had dinner at the hotel. After dinner they were returning to their rooms but Robert called Miko for a drink to his room. Aleksandar joined them as well. Unbeknownst to Miko, Aleksandar and Robert had poisoned the orange juice and gave it to him. Miko took one or two sips and mentioned he was feeling sleepy. He then went to his room. The following morning his dead body was found.

Inspector Madhur arrested Aleksandar and Robert. The embassies of Japan, Russia and Switzerland were informed about the case. In a week a case against Aleksandar and Robert would commence in the local court.

Inspector Madhur and Jeet were not sure why Miko used the code words in the paper and left it near the toilet bowl. He probably did that a while before he died as he was suspicious of Aleksandar and Robert but for some reason did not want to name them directly.

Inspector Madhur thanked Jeet for his help. Jeet mentioned he was glad to help out.

After the conference ended, Jeet returned to his usual work at the Research and Analysis Unit with the Delhi Police.