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?