HYOGO (TR) – The bodies of a missing 40-year-old woman and her infant son have been found along a beach in Ako City in a case that is being treated as a murder-suicide, police said on Monday, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Sept. 3).
At 9:55 a.m., a city worker found the body of the woman, a resident of Ako, along the coast of the Fukuura area. About four hours later, the Himeji branch of the Japan Coast Guard found the body of her 2-months-old son floating offshore in the Nakahiro area.
According to the Ako Police Station, the bodies did not exhibit any external wounds.
At around 1:00 p.m. on September 1, husband of the woman told police that she had left the residence and did not return. At just past 6:00 p.m., a passerby to a parking lot at a municipal center in the city found the 4-year-old son of the woman crying inside her vehicle, police said.
The boy said that he had come to the location by car with his mother. “I thought she left on an errand,” the boy added. As well, a note written on a receipt that was found in the vehicle read, “Don’t search for us.”
A total of 40 police and coast guard personnel engaged in the search for the woman and her child.
