Tokyo-area man arrested after wife's body found in storage container
SAITAMA -- Police in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, arrested a man May 21 on suspicion of abandoning his wife's body, which was previously found in a drum container on the premises of a recycling company in the prefecture.
The suspect, 50-year-old Hitoshi Hoya of no fixed address and unemployed, has reportedly admitted to the allegations and hinted at murder. The prefectural police are advancing the investigation with the possibility of charges such as murder and injury causing death.
Hoya is specifically accused of abandoning the body of his wife, Miharu, sometime between mid-September 2011 and Feb. 15 this year. The couple lived together in the city of Tokorozawa at the time. She was placed in a container approximately 60 centimeters in diameter and 90 cm deep at a storage facility in the city.
According to Saitama Prefectural Police, Hoya contracted the storage unit in September 2011. Police believe Miharu had died that summer. External injuries were found on the body, and investigations will focus on the cause of death.
On April 17 this year, the drum container was retrieved by the recycling company in the prefectural city of Yoshikawa at the management company's request due to persisting unpaid storage fees. The body of Miharu, who was 39 in 2011, was covered in a blue tarp when she was found by a recycling company employee the next day. The drum reportedly had its lid sealed.
The same month, Hoya was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly driving an uninspected light vehicle in violation of the Road Transport Vehicle Act and was afterward indicted. Although there is a three-year statute of limitations for abandoning a body, Saitama police determined that Hoya's obligation as the husband to properly take care of his wife's body meant he was still perpetrating the act of abandonment, putting it within the statute and leading to his arrest.
(Japanese original by Yusuke Sato, Saitama Bureau)
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