TX - Mikiko Kasahara, 21, TLU student, strangled/burned in apt, 13 Dec 2002 *fresh initiative*

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Lengthy article.
Inside Texas cold cases: A young Japanese student strangled, her body burned just hours after partying with friends
June 3 2020
''On Dec. 13, 2002, the Texas Lutheran University student celebrated the end of her school term with a small group of friends at her Seguin apartment into the wee hours of the following morning. It was a high moment for the young Japanese woman -- only 21 -- who expected excellent grades for her freshman fall term.

Mikiko Kasahara

The next time people saw Kasahara -- the following morning after a neighbor reported a fire -- she was unrecognizable, a skeleton pulled from her burned-out apartment in the 900 block of San Antonio Avenue. She had been partying with friends not three hours, earlier.

In the time between seeing her friends and the neighbor noticing the fire, Kasahara had been strangled and suffered “numerous” other injuries. After she’d died, someone lit her body on fire.''

 

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Seguin PD focused on '02 murder
Jan 1, 2005
''SEGUIN —The smiling face of a girl she never knew haunts Detective Maureen Watson before her head hits the pillow at night and when she gets up in the morning.''

“This is far from a cold case, and I won’t let it become a cold case,” Watson said.


On Dec. 14, 2002, Kasahara had held a small get together at her apartment to say goodbye to her friends who were going back to Japan for the Christmas break. They visited late into the night with the last guest reportedly leaving at about 6 a.m.

Three hours later, Seguin Fire and EMS responded to a fire at the Sunset Terrace apartment complex.''

Collazo told the publication that he believes the person who killed Kasahara was a man, but, as the report noted, “stopped short of referring to the murder as a crime of passion.”

Inside Texas cold cases: A young Japanese student strangled, her body burned just hours after partying with friends
''Seguin Police Department Detective Jaime Diaz told KPRC 2 that in the years since the crime, authorities recreated the crime scene and a burned laptop from the scene was processed for information. Authorities, he said, found Asian female on the computer that was accessed around the time of Kasahara’s murder. However, no physical evidence could be retrieved from the computer’s surface due to its condition after the fire.''

“I talk to the mom every year,” Diaz said. “She’s a doctor and she comes down from Japan to conferences every year. ... Nice lady. I can’t give her any good news."

''Diaz said Kasahara was someone who didn’t seek out trouble, and was truly the victim of a heinous crime.''

If you have any information on this case, submit a tip through the Texas Rangers’ Cold Case website or call 1-800-346-3243. Your information will be forwarded to the Texas Ranger assigned to the case. A $3,000 reward is now offered. Go here for more information and details.''

Inside Texas cold cases: A young Japanese student strangled, her body burned just hours after partying with friends
''Kasahara sustained a broken bone in her larynx and a pelvis injury accompanied by significant hemorrhaging. Forensics specialists couldn't determine the source of the injury because Kasahara's body was so badly burned.

Kasahara enrolled at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin in the summer of 2000 as a student in the university's English as a Second Language program.''

 

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CRIME HUNTER: Who murdered, torched Texas co-ed?
Brad Hunter
June 6, 2020 rbbm.
''A neighbour reported a fire the morning after and Kasahara’s body was removed from the unit, unrecognizable, with nothing left but a skeleton.

Some time between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m., she had been tortured, strangled to death, then set ablaze.

If the fire was used to cover up the murder, it didn’t work.''

''There was no booze or drugs in the clean-living exchange student’s system.''

Mikiko Kasahara: Did her killer have an obsession with Asian women? HANDOUT / TEXAS RANGERS
rbbm.