Suspect told police she ‘strangled their necks’ and ‘wanted to die together’.
A woman was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of strangling her two boys before loading their bodies into a car in an apparent murder-suicide attempt.
Fukuoka Prefectural Police arrested Asako Nakashita, 36, of Hikari City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, on charges of abandoning a corpse after she was found with the bodies of her sons Ryunosuke, 11, and Yuzuru, 3, in her car along a road in Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture, at around 6 a.m. on Wednesday, the Mainichi Shimbun reports (June 8).
Police said Nakashita admitted to the charges, saying she “was looking for a place to die.” She also told officers she “strangled” her sons and “wanted to die together.”
Authorities are also weighing murder charges in light of her apparent attempted murder-suicide.
Nakashita’s relative noticed the mother and her two boys were missing on Tuesday night, and filed a missing persons report with Yamaguchi Prefectural Police by Wednesday morning.
According to the Asahi Shimbun, the case was referred to Fukuoka Prefectural Police. A Fukuoka police officer was on road patrol when they spotted Nakashita’s car with a matching Yamaguchi license plate and pulled her over for questioning.
The officer noticed the boys’ bodies in the back seat, which had visible traces of strangling around their necks. Authorities will conduct an autopsy to identify the cause of death.
“My son is dead”
According to Ryunosuke’s elementary school in Yamaguchi, the boy attended class as usual on Tuesday. School officials received a phone call from the boy’s father on Wednesday morning saying he was “told by Fukuoka Prefectural Police my son is dead.”
Ryunosuke’s elementary school asks students if they have any concerns at home through weekly questionnaires, to which the boy indicated nothing was out of the ordinary last week.
Ryunosuke’s teacher said Ryunosuke was “active during break time and loved to do things like play soccer with his friends.”
Source: Tokyo Reporter Video and image: ANN
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