Man indicted for killing university student with thallium

According to the indictment, Kazuki Miyamoto, a real estate agent, who was arrested on March 3, poisoned university student Hinako Hamano by getting her to ingest a lethal amount of thallium, a highly toxic substance that was once widely used as rat poison.

Miyamoto initially told police that on Oct 11, he and Hamano had dined out before going to Hamano's apartment for a drink. He said she started coughing repeatedly and that he gave her some cough medicine which he had bought at a pharmacy.

Miyamoto contacted the woman's family, who took her to a hospital in Osaka Prefecture the next day. However, her condition worsened, and she died on Oct 15. An autopsy revealed her cause of death was acute respiratory distress syndrome, which prevents the lungs from providing vital organs with sufficient oxygen, due to thallium poisoning. ...continue reading