Police said Thursday they found a female body wrapped in blue plastic sheet in a cemetery in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, based on an admission by the former boyfriend of a Tokyo woman who has been missing for two years along with her son.
The admission was made by Kazumaro Sato, the missing woman's former boyfriend, and Chisaki Akiyama, a suspected female accomplice. The Metropolitan Police Department arrested both Thursday on initial suspicion of discarding a corpse.
Sato, 29, a part-time worker and resident of Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, and Akiyama, a 23-year-old farmer in Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture, had been under investigation in connection with the missing mother and her 7-year-old son.
The police suspect the suspects transported the dead woman, whose identity has yet to be confirmed, from Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, to the Midori Ward graveyard on or around July 19, 2013.
Police started invetigating the case after the missing woman's relatives reported her disappearance last December. The son also remains missing.