Japanese police arrest common-law husband of burned couple’s daughter

Police arrested the husband of a woman whose burned parents’ bodies were found in Tochigi Prefecture last month and suspected he played a leading role in the crime, they said on Tuesday.

The number of suspects in the case now stands at six after Seiha Sekine, a 32-year-old executive who worked as a manager in the couple’s restaurant management company, was arrested on Monday and another acquaintance of the couple was arrested on Tuesday.

Sekine and Ryo Maeda, a 36-year-old company executive, were arrested on suspicion of assault after the burned bodies of restaurant operator Ryutaro Takarajima, 55, and his wife Sachiko, 56, were found on a river bank in Nasu, eastern Japan, on March 16 . April.

A real estate company run by Maeda managed the vacant Tokyo home where the couple was allegedly attacked before their bodies were left behind, the sources said.

The four other suspects did not know the couple, according to sources.

According to the sources, one of the four, 28-year-old Hikaru Sasaki, told police that another person asked him to “judge” the couple in early April.

So far, none of the suspects have been arrested for murder. Sekine and Maeda were arrested for burning the couple’s bodies with the help of the four in the early hours of April 16, the sources said, adding that police searched Sekine’s house.

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