U.S. Marine signals involvement in murder-robbery in Okinawa

Naha, Okinawa Pref. – A U.S. Marine indicted for an alleged murder-robbery in Okinawa Prefecture signaled his involvement in the crime during questioning by the prefecture’s police, investigative sources said.

Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, had denied his role in the case when he was arrested by the police in early October.

Ballard, who belongs to the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the Okinawa city of Ginowan, was indicted on Sunday. The Naha District Public Prosecutors Office in Okinawa has not disclosed whether he admitted the allegations.

According the indictment and other sources, Ballard allegedly strangled a 39-year-old woman with a telephone cord in a hotel room in Naha, the capital of Okinawa, between around 2:10 a.m. and 4:15 a.m. on Oct. 3 and stole her backpack containing her wallet.

Ballard returned to the Futenma base after leaving the hotel following his suspected crime, the investigative sources said Monday.

In a statement released through a lawyer on the same day, a bereaved relative of the woman said, “I believe she must have wanted to live much longer.” Urging a real culprit to fully atone for the crime, the relative said, “I will follow the (upcoming) trial until the end.”