IBARAKI (TR) – Ibaraki Prefectural Police have launched a pair of investigations following the discovery of four corpses in two residences in Hitachi-Omiya and Namegata cities earlier this week, according to local media. The cases are not believed to be related.
At around 9:00 a.m. on Monday, a female staff member of a nursing home alerted police after finding the bodies of an 89-year-old man and his son, 66, collapsed in different rooms of a residence in the Obata area of Namegata, reports NHK (Feb. 5).
Officers from the Namegata Police Station arriving at the residence confirmed both persons dead at the scene. Neither body exhibited external injuries, and the interior of the residence showed no signs of having been ransacked, police said.
The staff member, who was scheduled to arrive that day, entered the residence after not getting a response upon arriving at the front door.
The case is being treated as the result of foul play, police said.
In a separate incident, a government official contacted police after not being able to reach an occupant of a residence in the Torinoko are of Hitachi-Omiya City at around 1:15 that same day, according to TBS News (Feb. 5).
Officers from the Omiya Police Station entering the residence found the body of a 90-year-old woman in the living room. Her son, 69, was found hanged in a storage room. The residence showed no signs of having been ransacked, police said.
According to the Sankei Shimbun (Feb. 9), the results of an autopsy revealed that the woman died a natural death. The cause of death of her son was suffocation in what is being viewed as a suicide.
