SHIZUOKA (TR) – Shizuoka Prefectural Police arrested a man for allegedly kidnapping a middle school girl whose body was found inside a tent in a mountainous area of Hamamatsu City on Wednesday, reports Fuji News Network (Mar. 19).
At around 1:30 p.m. on Monday, Dai Irie, 33, of no known occupation, allegedly abducted the 15-year-old girl with his car in Hamamatsu.
Early the following day, the parents of the girl, who lives in Hamamatsu, reported her missing. At around noon on Tuesday, Irie called police. “We tried to kill ourselves, but only I survived,” he reportedly said.
Police arriving at a campground in Tenryu Ward found the body of the girl inside the tent. Burned charcoal briquettes were also inside.
“Planned a double suicide”
Irie, a resident of Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, met the girl through social media. After the discovery of the body of the girl, he was nearby and in poor health. But he later recovered. “We planned a double suicide,” he said.
Police arrested Irie on suspicion of abducting a minor on Wednesday. He was sent to prosecutors the next day.
“We still cannot wrap our heads around [what happened],” the father of the girl was quoted by the Mainichi Shimbun.
“We had not heard of any trouble”
On Thursday, the middle school the girl attended held its graduation ceremony. “We didn’t hear anything from the police,” the principal of the school told the Mainichi. “We had not heard of any trouble at school or anything like that.”
Kazutaka Kawamura owns the campground. “Nobody from Fukuoka comes here. He was the first,” the owner said in referring to Irie.
After Irie and the girl arrived on the night of March 15, an employee collected the fee from them. Kawamura didn’t notice “anything unusual” about them at the time.
“There were briquettes found in the tent,” Kawamura added. “But they were normal ones [and not those used for suicide].”