NAGASAKI (TR) – Police have arrested a 54-year-old unemployed man for arson after he confessed to burning down the home in Sasebo City that he shared with his elderly mother, reports TV Asahi (May 5).
At around 1:00 p.m. on May 3, the ferocious blaze began to engulf the residence. “Flames shot up, and I heard noises,” a neighborhood resident recounted. “There were popping sounds, like gas exploding.”
While the suspect’s 77-year-old mother managed to escape the inferno unharmed, her son was nowhere to be found thereafter, which prompted an initial search and rescue effort.
However, the situation took a bizarre turn the following day. Rather than being trapped in the rubble, the son was discovered hiding inside a public restroom at a city park, completely uninjured.
Upon being taken in for questioning, the case quickly shifted from a missing persons search to a criminal investigation. The man began to hint at his involvement in the fire before eventually making a full confession to investigators.
“There is no mistake that I set fire to the house,” the suspect stated.
Police believe the man used a cigarette lighter to ignite combustible materials on the second floor of the house before fleeing the scene and taking refuge in the park.
