How gruesome photos on a memory stick revealed identity of killer who died days after victim


19-year-old university student Miyako Hiraoka disappeared on October 26, 2009, after leaving her part-time job at an ice cream parlour in the city of Hamada. Her killer died in a traffic accident days later. File photo: Handout.

TOKYO: A suspect who has been dead for seven years has been posthumously indicted over one of the most gruesome killings to shock Japan in living memory.

A joint task force made up of officers from the police forces of Hiroshima and Shimane prefectures in December announced the indictment of Yoshiharu Yano, who was 33 when he died in a car crash in November 2009, on suspicion of murder, mutilating a corpse and abandoning a body.

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