Overview
- Police entered the fourth-floor unit about 12:20 p.m. on Saturday and found an adult male’s badly damaged body inside a large freezer.
- Officers reported the body was in an advanced state of decomposition and not frozen, suggesting death occurred days earlier.
- Hyogo Prefectural Police have opened an active criminal investigation on suspicion of corpse mutilation and corpse abandonment and plan a judicial autopsy to determine cause of death and identity.
- No weapon linked to the case has been found at the scene, and investigators are carrying out on-site searches and checks of mail and the apartment to gather evidence.
- The discovery followed resident complaints of a foul odor reported to the building’s management on June 19, highlighting how locked units can delay welfare checks and complicate forensic work.