Overview
- Shiga Prefectural Police arrested Hattano Kazuya, 50, on Dec. 10 on suspicion of abandoning two bodies at his home in Otsu.
- Investigators found the remains in a single hole on the south side of the yard, and the bodies were largely skeletonized and thought to have been dead for years.
- Authorities are examining whether the victims are the suspect’s parents in their 70s, who lived with him and have not been reachable.
- Otsu City Hall’s Dec. 2 welfare inquiry about the parents led police to check the residence and ultimately uncover the graves.
- Police have not disclosed the suspect’s statements, and identification and cause-of-death determinations will proceed through judicial autopsies.