Hokkaido Prefectural Police intensified their investigation into a male city employee in his 30s who works at Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa City. He confessed during voluntary questioning that he abandoned his wife’s body in the zoo’s animal incinerator. He told investigators he left the body there and then went to work as usual. Officers conducted on-site inspections at the incinerator and other locations at the zoo on April 24 and 25.
The inquiry began after the woman, also in her 30s, could not be reached by relatives and acquaintances from late March. In recent weeks, those close to her sought help from police, prompting checks on her welfare and questions to the husband, with whom she lived in Asahikawa City. During his initial interactions with investigators, the man gave what were described as unnatural explanations about why he could not contact his wife, both to people connected to her and more generally. He later retracted those earlier statements and admitted to abandoning her body in the incinerator. Specific details about what led up to the act and how the body was transported have not been disclosed.
Seasonal maintanance
The events unfolded while Asahiyama Zoo has been shut for seasonal maintenance. The facility has been closed since April 8 to prepare for its summer operations and is scheduled to reopen on April 29, according to Japan Today. Police activity at the site during the closure included examinations of the incineration equipment and surrounding areas as they sought physical evidence connected to the man’s account. The search has yielded no remains, reinforcing investigators’ working theory that combustion in the high-temperature animal cremation unit may have left nothing recoverable.
Tha man remains under police questioning on suspicion of abandoning a body. Authorities have not announced charges, made public any alleged motive, according to The Asahi Shimbun.