Police investigators on April 17, 2026, head to the house of a man who was arrested for abandoning the body of his stepson, in Nantan, Kyoto Prefecture. (Kyodo)
KYOTO (Kyodo) — A man arrested for abandoning the body of his stepson who had been missing for weeks has confessed to strangling the boy, investigative sources said Friday.
Yuki Adachi, the 37-year-old stepfather of 11-year-old Yuki, was quoted as telling investigators before being arrested Thursday that he had “killed him by compressing his throat.”
The stepfather, who had reported the disappearance of the boy to local police, allegedly abandoned the corpse in Nantan between the morning of March 23 and Monday afternoon.
The prefectural police have said that the man moved the body to several locations to hide it before it was found.
The discovery followed an intense search since the stepson went missing on March 23 after the stepfather claimed to have driven the boy to school.
While the police have said that the stepfather drove near the school, they have refrained from saying whether the boy was in the car.
On the morning of March 23, the suspect told his company that he would take the day off as something had occurred at his house, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
According to multiple sources, the suspect works at an electronics maker’s factory in Kyotamba, next to Nantan, and was absent from work on March 19, the day he was supposed to go on a business trip, saying he had contracted a norovirus.
The following three days prior to March 23 comprised a public holiday and a weekend. After the boy went missing, the police released photos of his face and what he had been wearing on the day to seek information from the public.
As the search intensified, a relative of the boy found his school backpack in the woods around 3 kilometers away from his elementary school on March 29, according to the police.
The police found a pair of black sneakers possibly belonging to the boy near the woods between the school and the house on April 12.
AloJapan.com