NANTAN, Kyoto Prefecture—Police here rearrested a man on suspicion of murder after he admitted to strangling his adopted son in a public restroom, enraged that the boy said he wasn’t his real father, investigative sources said.
Yuuki Adachi, 37, who was previously arrested on April 16 on suspicion of abandoning the body of the 11-year-old boy, Yuki, has admitted to the murder allegation, Kyoto prefectural police said at a news conference May 6.
“I strangled Yuki to death with both hands,” police quoted the suspect as saying.
Police believe there had been trouble between the father and the son concerning their relationship.
During questioning before his April 16 arrest, Adachi had said, “I got angry and killed him over things he said, such as, ‘You’re not my real father,’” investigative sources told The Asahi Shimbun.
The father also said he acted alone in killing Yuki and dumping the body, the sources said.
According to the sources, Yuki’s mother got remarried to Adachi last year, and he legally adopted the boy.
Yuki’s disappearance on March 23 sparked a widespread search that lasted for three weeks.
Investigators believe the father and son had gotten into a dispute over their relationship.
According to investigative sources, Adachi was driving Yuki to Sonobe Elementary School on the morning of March 23, but after reaching the school’s vicinity, he turned the car around without dropping the boy off.
Adachi drove to a public restroom at the Rurikei tourist spot, about 2 kilometers from their home, and strangled Yuki there, they said.
The boy’s body was found in a different location on April 13. A detailed examination later concluded he likely died of asphyxiation.
Adachi had participated in search parties alongside family and relatives.
Over a few days after the killing, the sources said, Adachi moved his son’s body to four different places using his car to elude discovery.
The locations included: a hill behind their home; an area near a mountain pass where Yuki’s school bag was found on March 29; a spot near a national highway where his shoes were discovered on April 12; and the thicket where his body was found on April 13.
Adachi also admitted to discarding the bag and shoes himself.
CRACKS IN STORY
From the beginning, police suspected a parent-child relationship could be a factor in the disappearance, but they had to proceed with caution because, on the surface, the father and family were grieving.
“You can’t just ask, ‘Was there trouble between the parents and son?’” a senior investigator said.
Although Adachi’s account had inconsistencies, the possibility that Yuki had run away couldn’t be dismissed.
Police learned that Adachi, his wife and Yuki had a trip to Taiwan scheduled for March 24, the day after the boy vanished. The trip was planned as a honeymoon for Adachi and Yuki’s mother.
Investigators considered Yuki may have run away to avoid the trip.
But the family insisted they knew of “no reason he would run away.”
Police determined it was “highly likely Yuki was involved in an incident” and officially shifted from a “search” to a full “criminal investigation.”
While Adachi was being treated as a bereaved family member, he agreed to submit his smartphone to police and allow them to search his car.
The inspection revealed that dashcam footage from the morning of March 23 was missing. Information from Adachi’s phone and car led police to the locations of the boy’s belongings and, ultimately, his body.
“We are not just searching blindly,” a senior police official said during the search.
(This article was compiled from reports written by Michitaka Sato, Reona Jono and Takuma Nagao.)
AloJapan.com