Overview
- Tokyo’s Komatsugawa police opened a corpse‑abandonment investigation after a landlord reported a foul odor and officers found an adult body in a closet inside a cardboard box wrapped in a blanket and plastic.
- The Tokyo body showed no obvious external injuries, was too decomposed for immediate identification, and investigators are examining whether it could be a former tenant’s cohabitant.
- The Edogawa apartment had been vacant since a man in his 60s who lived there died in November, prompting the landlord’s cleanup visit that led to the discovery.
- In Hokkaido’s Hidaka Town, police identified the woman found hidden inside a bar wall as 28‑year‑old nurse Hinano Kudo and determined she died from strangulation by a rope‑like object.
- Investigators arrested bar owner Toshihiko Matsukura, 49, on suspicion of abandoning a body and are considering murder charges, citing surveillance footage and other evidence.