The woman, aged in her 60s, went missing in March. Toshifumi Morioka, of no known occupation, surfaced as a person of interest for police through another of her acquaintances.
“I buried the corpse in a hole,” Morioka told police. On the morning of June 15, investigators found what appears to be the corpse of an adult female buried in the mountains.
In addition to working to confirm the identity of the body, police plan to use the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death.
On June 14, police accused Morioka of fraud. Between July and October of last year, he allegedly misappropriated 53,000 yen through an acupuncture clinic he ran in Hiroshima City. His admission about burying the body came before his arrest.
During further questioning, Morioka told police that he got into a fight with the woman inside a car. He then said that he tossed her mobile telephone into a river, according to Hiroshima Telecasting (June 17).
With Morioka also having hinted at killing the woman, the investigation is ongoing on suspicion of abandoning a corpse and murder.
