KYOTO — Police here have arrested a 37-year-old man on suspicion of abandoning the body of his 11-year-old stepson in a mountainous forest, reports the Kyoto Shimbun (Apr. 16).
Yuki Adachi, a company employee, is accused of dumping the corpse of his stepson, also named Yuki (written with different kanji), in a wooded area in Nantan City’s Sonobe-cho district.
Upon his arrest on Thursday, Adachi fully confessed to the allegations. “There is no doubt that I did it,” he was quoted as telling investigators.
An investigation was launched after the 11-year-old boy, a student at Sonobe Elementary School, was found dead on April 13. The boy’s heavily decomposed body had been abandoned in the mountains, reportedly left completely barefoot.
Following the discovery, Kyoto Prefectural Police raided Adachi’s residence on the morning of April 15 and brought him in for voluntary questioning before formally issuing an arrest warrant.
Suspicion had quickly fallen on the father during the initial investigation. While the boy’s absence was initially treated as a missing persons case, security camera footage from the area captured Adachi’s vehicle, yet the 11-year-old was nowhere to be seen, raising immediate red flags of foul play.
Misinformation
The shocking nature of the crime spawned intense public scrutiny and a wave of xenophobic online rumors, with fake reports spreading widely that the suspect was a foreign national in his 20s.
The misinformation campaign prompted authorities and media outlets to quickly clarify the suspect’s true identity to quell the hoaxes.
According to investigative sources, Adachi became the boy’s stepfather late last year following a remarriage.
Police are now continuing to probe the events leading up to the boy’s tragic death, looking into the likelihood of fatal domestic abuse within the home before the body was dumped.
