Gail Alexan­der

Sev­er­al Japan­ese me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day fol­lowed friends and col­leagues of mur­dered Japan­ese pan­nist Asa­mi Na­gakiya, as they laid flow­ers and can­dles at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, spot where her body was found on Wednes­day.

For­eign me­dia have been ar­riv­ing in T&T since Thurs­day to cov­er the sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing Na­gakiya, 30, whose body was dis­cov­ered on Ash Wednes­day, hours af­ter Car­ni­val 2016 end­ed. She was still clad in her yel­low "Lega­cy" Car­ni­val cos­tume, wear­ing jew­el­ry. An au­top­sy sub­se­quent­ly in­di­cat­ed she was stran­gled. Po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing the sit­u­a­tion are re­port­ed to be col­lat­ing in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing se­cu­ri­ty cam­era footage, and were ques­tion­ing some­one in con­nec­tion with the case.

Fol­low­ing Thurs­day's "wake" at the New­town pa­n­yard of PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars–with which Na­gakiya had played since 2012–Sil­ver Stars band­mates and col­leagues from oth­er bands, such as the Co­dring­ton Fam­i­ly band, with whom she had al­so played, went to place flow­ers at the site where her body was found.

The group, dressed most­ly in black and led by Sil­ver Stars arranger Mar­cus Ash, start­ed off from Sil­ver Stars' Tra­garete Road pa­n­yard and walked up Wood­ford Street, New­town, to the Sa­van­nah. They laid sin­gle red and white ros­es on the spot, as well as can­dles.

Apart from lo­cal me­dia, the group was fol­lowed by film­ing Japan­ese me­dia crews. On Thurs­day night, a crew from the US-based Japan­ese Fu­ji TV ar­rived in time to view the end­ing of the "wake." FT pro­duc­er Ni­na Coomes said they had seen the cov­er­age of Na­gakiya's death in the T&T Guardian and de­cid­ed to come to T&T to fol­low it up.

Yes­ter­day, two oth­er Japan­ese me­dia crews which ar­rived al­so filmed the pa­n­yard where Na­gakiya last played and in­ter­viewed her col­leagues.

Tokyo Broad­cast­ing as­so­ciate pro­duc­er Nachum Her­nan­dez said the sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing Na­gakiya was big news in Japan.

"A for­eign na­tion­al gets killed, it is big news," he added.

Mem­bers of an­oth­er Japan­ese me­dia out­fit, TV Asahi, told the T&T Guardian that Na­gakiya was born on the is­land of Hokkai­do in Japan–the most norther­ly of Japan's is­lands–and had gone to state col­lege; she had re­cent­ly been based in Yoko­hama. Band­mates at Sil­ver Stars said her fa­ther was a Bud­dhist priest.