Sakai Fought Killers, Meier Says

Toru Sakai planned the murder of his father for three months, but from the moment the victim was lured inside a Beverly Hills mansion, things started going wrong, a man who said he helped Sakai with the killing testified Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Takashi (Glenn) Sakai, 54, a wealthy international businessman who lived in Tarzana, was killed inside the home but not before a bloody and unexpected fight in which he almost was able to escape, Gregory Meier testified.

“I was behind the door,” Meier said. “He took a couple of steps in, and I came up behind him. I was successful in hitting him in the neck, but he didn’t go down. For some reason I thought I would be able to knock him out--like in the movies. But it doesn’t work that way. He ran for the door.

“I helped Toru bring him back inside,” Meier said. “We kept trying to knock him out.”

It was only after the elder Sakai had been struck repeatedly with a steel bar and handcuffed that his son stabbed him to death in the house’s basement, Meier testified.

Meier, 21, a friend of Toru Sakai’s since they were members of the same high school tennis team, has been granted immunity in the case.

Sakai, also 21, has been charged with murder but is still being sought by authorities. His mother, Sanae Sakai, 51, has been charged with being an accessory to murder after the fact.

Meier revealed the details of the April 20, 1987, slaying during a preliminary hearing on the charge against Sanae Sakai. After Meier and other witnesses testified, she was ordered by Judge David M. Horwitz to stand trial in the case.

The body of Takashi Sakai, founder of Pacific Partners, an affiliate of the World Trade 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 had 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 kidnaped 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.