Closing a crucial chapter in the decades-long drama surrounding Kazuyoshi Miura, who was charged with conspiracy to murder his wife, the businessman who hanged himself will officially be tied to a separate death involving a former girlfriend whose body was found near Los Angeles in 1979.

Detective Rick Jackson, a Los Angeles Police Department investigator who has been on the Miura case for nearly 10 years, said compelling factors support that Chizuko Shiraishi was murdered and Miura was responsible.

Jackson said statements that Miura made to witnesses, circumstantial evidence such as similar financial transactions that followed the deaths of Shiraishi and his wife, Kazumi Miura, along with other indicators, led to the reclassification.

The reclassification will mean an end to further investigations.