Crime Beat

Bank in Beverly Hills, was found buried in Malibu Canyon in early February, about 10 months after his slaying.
    According to Meier and authorities, Toru Sakai carried out the killing because his parents were embroiled in a bitter divorce and he feared that he and his mother, with whom he lived in the family’s Tarzana home, would face financial difficulties.
    “He told me, basically, that he hated his father and he didn’t know what else to do,” Meier said.
    Discussed the Slaying
    Meier said that on three occasions in early 1987 he and Toru Sakai discussed the killing. But Meier said he wanted no part of the plan. Meier said he finally agreed to help his friend in early April 1987, when Toru said he had paid another friend $1,000 to do the job but the friend failed to follow through.
    “I didn’t volunteer,” Meier said. “He persuaded me. He told me he would help me out when I needed him.”
    Meier said the plan was to lure Takashi Sakai to the empty Beverly Hills home at 718 Crescent Drive that Sanae Sakai was managing for a Japanese investor. Once there, Sakai would be kidnapped and taken to Malibu Canyon and then killed and buried, he testified.
    In early April, the two friends dug a grave in a secluded spot off Malibu Canyon Road, Meier testified. Then on April 20, Meier said he went to the Beverly Hills home and waited while Toru met his father at a nearby hotel to ask the elder Sakai to come with him to the home.
    When he arrived at the house, Takashi Sakai was attacked, subdued after a struggle at the front door and then thrown down the basement stairs, Meier said.
    “He was moaning and yelling for help at the bottom of the stairs,” Meier said.
    Change in Plan
    After that, Toru Sakai decided to change the plan and carry out the killing in the basement, Meier said.
    “He brought out a knife and asked me to go down and finish off his father,” Meier said.
    Meier said he refused and then watched Toru take the knife down to the basement. When Meier later went down, he saw the older Sakai had been stabbed to death. He said the body was then wrapped in trash bags, rolled in the blood-soaked rug from the house’s entrance hall and loaded into Toru’s Porsche. The two then took the body to Malibu Canyon for burial, Meier said.
    Meier said he and Toru spent the next two days getting rid of evidence. He said they dropped Takashi Sakai’s car at Los Angeles International Airport, took the murder weapon and the piece of carpet from the entrance hall of the Beverly Hills house to a landfill in Glendale and painted over blood-spattered walls in the house.
    “We put several coats in the basement,” he said.
    Meier testified that he later received $1,400 from Toru Sakai for his part in the killing.
    A carpet salesman and an installer also testified Monday that two days after the killing, Sanae Sakai had purchased carpet and had it installed in the entrance of the Beverly Hills house. The witnesses said the new carpet was a small piece that closely matched the color of the surrounding carpet in the house.
    Deputy Dist. Atty. Lonnie A. Felker said Sanae Sakai’s quick replacement of the rug was part of the evidence that showed she knew of the killing and was aiding her son. Sanae Sakai has denied she had anything to do with her husband’s killing.
MURDER CASE
Tough choices in deal for crucial testimony.
    June 1, 1988
    Police were able to break open the Takashi Sakai murder case because one of the men who took part in the killing made a mistake: He left a fingerprint on a parking lot ticket when he left the dead man’s car at Los Angeles International Airport.
    But the man who left the fingerprint, 21-year-old Greg Meier, will not face a day in jail for his role in the murder, although he admitted that he helped ambush the wealthy Japanese businessman, club him with a steel pipe and bury the body after Sakai had been stabbed to death.
    Using the fingerprint as the key piece of evidence gathered in a 10-month investigation of Sakai’s disappearance, authorities in February persuaded Meier to tell what happened to the missing Tarzana man and lead them to his body.
    In exchange for that help and for agreeing to testify about the murder, Meier was granted immunity from prosecution. He is now expected to be the key witness in the prosecution of his best friend, Toru Sakai, 21, who is charged with murder and conspiracy in the fatal stabbing of his father.
    Meier is also expected to play an important role as a