KYOTO — Kyoto Prefectural Police conducted an on-site inspection of a public restroom in Nantan City on Saturday morning, where a 37-year-old man is believed to have temporarily hidden the body of his 11-year-old adoptive son before discarding it in a nearby forest, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun (Apr. 18)
Yuki Adachi, a company employee, was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of abandoning the corpse of his stepson, also named Yuki, a sixth-grade student at Sonobe Elementary School.
According to investigative sources, the suspect has confessed to the killing. “I drove him to school but didn’t let him out of the car. I took him to another location in Nantan City, impulsively strangled him to death, and abandoned the body,” he reportedly told police.
Went missing in March
The young boy was reported missing on the morning of March 23. Prior to his arrest, the adoptive father claimed he had dropped the boy off at his elementary school at around 8:00 a.m. on March 23.
Following a massive three-week search, his remains were discovered on April 13 in a mountainous area approximately two kilometers southwest of his elementary school.
Investigators now believe the suspect initially concealed the boy’s corpse on his own residential property. As search efforts intensified and public attention grew, the panicked father allegedly relocated the remains to a public restroom near Rurikei Prefectural Natural Park — about 2.6 kilometers from his home — before ultimately dumping the body in the woods.
On Saturday, forensics teams scoured the restroom and the surrounding area to retrace the suspect’s movements and gather physical evidence to corroborate his statements.
Dashcam
Interviews with investigators also revealed that some footage from the father’s car’s dashcam was missing. Police are investigating the possibility that the father deleted the footage to conceal places he had visited.
Authorities are continuing to investigate the exact timeline and motive behind the killing, and are expected to pursue murder charges against the adoptive father in the coming days.
