Overview
- Police say the Asahikawa City employee in his 30s admitted during questioning that he put his wife's body in the zoo's incinerator.
- Forensic teams covered the incinerator building near the former East Gate with blue tarps and searched it in protective suits.
- Investigators have not found human remains and say the furnace, which burns general trash, may have reduced a body to ash.
- The inquiry began after an acquaintance reported the woman in her 30s missing to Hokkaido Prefectural Police earlier in April.
- Asahikawa City officials and zoo staff are verifying the employee's actions as the park remains closed for a seasonal changeover.