IBARAKI (TR) – Ibaraki Prefectural Police have announced that a body found buried in the town of Yachiyo is that of a woman who went missing four years ago.
On Wednesday, police said that the body is that of Junko Mori, who was 65 when she went missing from her home in Kogo City in 2020, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Nov. 11).
At around 6:00 a.m. on May 6, 2020, Mori’s eldest son called police. “Help me,” he said. When police officers rushed to his home, they arrested the son after he began behaving as if he had used drugs.
The son reportedly said of Mori, who also lived at the residence, that “she committed suicide at home.” However, her body was never found.
In July of this year, a person was arrested and detained at a police station outside the prefecture over a different case. The suspect stated that they “buried Mori’s body several years ago.”
In October, police excavated a field in the Hiratsuka area of Yachiyo. During the work, they found the body wrapped in a plastic sheet.
The person was a mutual acquaintance of Mori and her son. “I buried the body at the son’s request,” the suspect said.
Meanwhile, the son has been convicted of a separate drug-related crime and is serving his sentence outside the prefecture. He told police, “I asked an acquaintance to dispose of the body.”
Based on the condition of Mori’s body, police suspect that she had been dead for several years. The cause of death is not known. The case is being treated as abandoning a corpse.
