2011年8月19日金曜日

Head found in Osaka likely middle-aged male

OSAKA — A severed human head found at a park in the city of Osaka over the weekend in a suspected multiple murder case was of a man in his 40s or 50s who apparently died around June, a police examination has shown.

The head bore multiple wounds, but none appeared life-threatening, leaving the cause of death still unknown, police said.

The head and other body parts were found in three 18-liter metal containers, two of them in the city's Tennoji Ward on Sunday, and the third at a garbage collection site at an apartment complex in the city the following day.

The third metal container, from which a left ankle of possibly an adult woman was found, had been collected as garbage in the ward around Aug. 5 from the same area where the two other containers were later found.

A large label on the container bore the words "choline bitartrate" in Japanese, a chemical used to treat liver disease, police said Wednesday. Police are attempting to track the chemicals, which are only distributed to university laboratories and pharmaceutical companies.

The name of what is thought to be a pharmaceutical company also appeared on the label of one of the containers, according to the police.

Police say the remains, including a pair of hands and two right ankles, indicate there were at least two victims, whose identities remain unknown.

Judging from the cuts, several edged tools must have been used to dismember the bodies, according to the police.

A 41-year-old neighborhood man said he saw, one night in late July, a male in his 20s or 30s unload two containers from a whitish minivan in a parking lot near where one of the metal containers was later found.

The witness said that when he looked down at the car from his condominium, he saw a middle-aged woman in the passenger's seat and another person in the back seat.


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