Bones Found on Oshima Island Beach; Man Arrested on Suspicion of Abandoning, Damaging Corpse

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:00 JST, January 24, 2025

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department arrested Sotatsu Yanase, 45, on Friday on suspicion of damaging and abandoning the corpse of a woman he had been dating, after bones were found on a beach on Oshima Island, south of central Tokyo, in autumn last year.

The police are investigating the circumstances of the woman’s death.

Yanase runs a tatami mat shop on Oshima Island, and the woman, who was 37, worked part-time at a food and drink establishment in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. According to the announcement, Yanase is suspected of damaging her body and dumping it on the southwestern coast of the island between Sept. 9 and Oct. 23 last year.

Yanase has admitted the charge, saying, “I did it.”

A man who was cleaning the beach found six bones, including a hip bone, on Oct. 23. The bones showed signs of having been cut and burned, and the woman’s identity was confirmed through DNA analysis on Jan. 14.

There is a record of the woman boarding a ship to Oshima Island from Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, on Sept. 9. She told her colleagues at work that she was going to travel to Okinawa with a friend after meeting her boyfriend on Oshima Island.

The Metropolitan Police Department’s investigation revealed that the woman had met and been in a relationship with Yanase after meeting him at food and drink establishment on the island where she had been working part-time at the time.

Yanase had consulted with the Oshima Police Station in September 2023 and May 2024 about troubles in his relationship with the woman.

The police searched Yanase’s home and other locations on Jan. 22, and he had been voluntarily questioned.