Ex-Insurance Saleswoman Held In Curry-Poisoning Case In Japan

TOKYO - Police arrested a woman today in a mass-poisoning case in which arsenic-laced curry killed four people and sickened dozens of others at a summer festival in southwestern Japan.

Former insurance saleswoman Masumi Hayashi was charged with murder and attempted murder for allegedly sprinkling the arsenic into a pot of curry served at a festival in Wakayama, said a police official, who gave only his surname, Miyamoto.

Hayashi denied the charges, Miyamoto said.

Two children died in the July 25 poisoning, which shook the nation and was followed by a rash of apparent copycat poisonings. A total of 63 people were sickened by the curry.

The case has attracted media attention in a country still scarred from the 1995 nerve-gas assault by the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult that killed 12 in Tokyo.

Hayashi earlier had been charged with serving arsenic-laced meals to her 53-year-old husband, Kenji Hayashi, and another man on several occasions in 1997 in an attempt to get their life-insurance money.

Kenji Hayashi also was charged in the earlier case with insurance fraud.

Local media had been speculating for months that Masumi Hayashi may have been behind the curry poisoning.

Investigators found arsenic under a sink in Hayashi's home and in about 10 other spots on her property in Wakayama, about 280 miles southwest of Tokyo.

The Hayashis had been under police scrutiny for years, partly because Kenji Hayashi ran a termite-extermination company that gave him access to poisonous chemicals.

The couple have repeatedly denied all charges against them.

Police suspect Masumi Hayashi poisoned the curry to get $4.5 million in life insurance she had taken out on five people who participated in gambling sessions at her home, Kyodo News reported.