The Gifu Prefectural Police have found multiple knives at a cake shop in the prefecture where two people were found dead after a fire on Saturday, investigative sources said Monday. The police believe the knives may include the weapon used to stab a man who died of blood loss from an abdominal wound. The fire started at Sunrise, a cake shop in the Gifu city of Motosu, on Saturday night.
The bodies of the stabbed man and a woman were found in the burned-out building. The woman died of acute carbon monoxide poisoning. Meanwhile, three others were taken to the hospital from the scene, including a 70-year-old company executive, who was later confirmed dead.
The conditions of the other two, the cake shop’s 68-year-old owner and a 65-year-old man from the Gifu city of Mizuho, are unknown. At the time of the incident, a total of 11 people were at the shop, and all but the company executive were junior high school classmates, according to police sources. The former classmates had met regularly, and the police are investigating why the company executive joined them that day.
The police had received no reports of disputes among the 11 individuals. The company executive was found nearly naked in the driver’s seat of his car, which was parked outside the building. Based on statements from people who were at the scene, the police suspect that the executive may have been involved in the incident.
They searched his home on Sunday. Saturday, the police received an emergency report that a person had been stabbed, gasoline was being poured and a fire had broken out. The fire was extinguished about three hours later, after burning roughly 300 square meters of the building.
The police have been in contact with the remaining six of the 11 people who were at the cake shop and are investigating the circumstances, suspecting that some kind of trouble preceded the incident.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
