Updated
Updated · BBC.com · Apr 28
Asahiyama Zoo delays opening after staffer confession triggers investigation
Updated
Updated · BBC.com · Apr 28

Asahiyama Zoo delays opening after staffer confession triggers investigation

13 articles · Updated · BBC.com · Apr 28
  • The Asahikawa zoo, due to reopen on Wednesday after a three-week maintenance break, will stay shut until Friday during Japan's Golden Week holiday, city authorities said.
  • Police searched the grounds last week after the employee allegedly told them he had put his missing wife's body in the zoo incinerator used for animal carcasses.
  • Mayor Hirosuke Imazu called it an unprecedented crisis and warned the zoo, which draws more than one million visitors a year, could close again without notice as the investigation continues.
When a workplace becomes a crime scene, can a beloved family zoo ever truly restore its innocent image?
Did Japan’s strict labor laws inadvertently protect a killer, leaving his employer powerless to intervene before the tragedy?