Father of Kyoto Boy Admits to Choking Son to Death

Nantan, Kyoto Pref., April 17 (Jiji Press)–The father of a boy in Kyoto Prefecture, western Japan, who was found dead earlier this week after going missing last month has admitted that he strangled the son, investigative sources said Friday. Yuki Adachi, 37, said in voluntary questioning by the Kyoto prefectural police that he killed his son, Yuki, 11, “by strangling him at a different place after stopping by” the boy’s school, according to the sources. The voluntary questioning took place before the arrest of the father Thursday on suspicion of abandoning the body of the son, a student of Sonobe Elementary School in the city of Nantan in the prefecture. The body of the boy was found lying on his back in a forest about 2 kilometers southwest of the school. The first names of the father and the son are spelled the same in English but are pronounced differently in Japanese. While an autopsy carried on the body has failed to determine the cause of the boy’s death, the victim is estimated to have died in late March. There were no visible injuries, such as stab wounds, on the body. The Kyoto police are carefully investigating the circumstances surrounding his death. The suspect has told the police that the son went missing after he got off the vehicle the father was driving near the elementary school around 8 a.m. March 23. Some footage from the vehicle’s dashboard camera had been deleted, but an analysis of the remaining footage found that the father drove to a place near the school on the morning of March 23. It remains unknown whether the boy was inside the vehicle at the time. While the boy was not seen on footage from the school’s security cameras that day, he was confirmed to have been alive until that morning. The suspect has admitted abandoning his son’s body and moved it several times in Nantan. On Friday, the prefectural police seized a vehicle believed to be owned by the suspect and transferred it from his home in Nantan to the city’s police station. The police will investigate the inside of the vehicle and the suspect’s behavior. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]