AICHI (TR) – Aichi Prefectural Police early on Sunday discovered the bodies of a woman and a young girl inside a sealed vehicle in what appears to be a tragic murder-suicide, reports TBS News (June 21).
At approximately 12:30 a.m., officers from the Inuyama Police Station found the two bodies slumped in the driver’s seat of a light passenger vehicle parked in a lot in the Hasso area of Inuyama City.
The deceased are described as a woman in her 40s and a toddler aged between one and 2 years old.
According to investigators, two shichirin (charcoal braziers) were found placed in the footwell of the passenger seat. In a hallmark of carbon monoxide poisoning suicides, the gaps around the vehicle’s windows had been intentionally sealed from the inside.
The grim discovery was made after authorities received a missing persons search request from a police department in another prefecture at around 11:30 p.m. the previous night. Officers were scouring the area when they located the parked vehicle.
Police are currently rushing to confirm the identities of the deceased and are continuing to investigate the circumstances leading up to the deaths.
