KANAGAWA (TR) – Kanagawa Prefectural Police have applied fresh charges of confinement resulting in death to two male suspects in custody in the abandoning of the body of a man who had gone missing under an office in Atsugi City, reports NHK (Apr. 5).
Police have accused Mitsuhiro Kugino, 39, and Issei Hiruma, 23, of abducting and fatally confining Hajime Kashiwazaki, a 27-year-old painter living in Sagamihara City.
Kashiwazaki’s body was found entombed in concrete under floorboards of the office of a construction company, located in the Kamiechi area of Atsugi, on February 27. The results of an autopsy revealed the cause of death to be loss of blood from a damaged artery in his thigh.
According to police, Kashiwazaki returned home with members of his family at around midnight on January 10. He then went park his vehicle in a nearby lot but was not heard from again.
Kashiwazaki’s vehicle was later found in a parking lot of a gymnasium in the town of Aikawa, located about seven kilometers from his residence. A bloodstain found in the back seat proved to be a match for Kashiwazaki. A part of a seat had also been burned.
Police had already arrested a total of five persons, including the two aforementioned suspects, in the abandoning of Kashiwazaki’s corpse.
A witness said that he saw several men gathered around the vehicle of Kashiwazaki in the parking lot near his home on the night he disappeared. Police suspect that the victim was subsequently kidnapped and beaten.
