SHIZUOKA (TR) – Shizuoka Prefectural Police believe that the corpse of a woman found in a forest in Fujieda City is that of a 29-year-old nurse who went missing last month, reports the Asahi Shimbun (June 10).
At around 6:00 p.m. on June 9, a search team looking for the woman, a resident of Hamamatsu City, found the corpse buried along a mountain road in the Setonoya area. The body, buried at a depth of around 20 centimeters, was completely covered with soil, according to the Hamamatsu-Higashi Police Station.
The person is believed to have died about two weeks before the discovery. The body did not exhibit any external wounds, police said.
The woman went missing on May 26. Three days later, her family lodged a missing persons report with police.
An examination of security camera footage showed the woman being abducted into her own vehicle by two men at a parking lot of a gym in Hamamatsu on the night of May 26. The vehicle was later found in Kuwana City, Mie Prefecture. The interior of the vehicle had not been ransacked, police said.
Based on an examination of data from the vehicle’s onboard navigational system, police began searching areas where it traveled.
The results of an autopsy will be used to confirm the identity of the body and determine the cause of death, police said.
Police are now seeking the whereabouts of the men. The case is being treated as murder and abandoning a corpse.
