AKITA (TR) – Akita Prefectural Police are investigating what is believed to have been a murder-suicide after the discovery of corpses in a vehicle and a residence in Yurihonjo City, reports TV Asahi (May 6).
At around 11:45 a.m. on May 4, a passerby tipped off police after finding the body of a man inside a vehicle parked on a municipal road in the Iwakiuchimichikawa area.
Officers arriving at the scene found the windows of the vehicle blackened and the charred body of 60-year-old Hiroshi Sasaki, a resident of Yurihonjo, in the passenger seat.
Officers visiting his residence found his mother, 91-year-old Yasuko, collapsed atop a futon. The cause of death was later deemed to have been suffocation. The woman’s neck showed signs of having been strangled by a cord, police said.
A neighbor told the network that Sasaki shares the residence with his mother, whom he cares for.
Police suspect that Sasaki strangled his mother before taking his own life in the vehicle by unspecified means.
