TOKYO—Police found the charred bodies of six people, three of them children, in a burnt-out car in a city south of Tokyo after a suspected family suicide, Japanese press said on Saturday.
The bodies of a man, a woman, an adult of unknown sex and three children were found in the car on a street in Yokosuka late Thursday, reports said.
The owner of the car, a 45-year-old man, told police on Friday that his 41-year-old common-law wife, their three children and his partner’s parents were unaccounted for, the reports added.
Police suspect that the car was set alight by the wife in a family suicide, the reports said.
“My wife has been troubled by a heavy debt she owes to a supermarket where she works,” the man told police, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported.
A press officer at the Yokosuka police station was not immediately available to comment.
An eyewitness said he was woken up by the sound of a car door slamming at around 11:00 p.m. on Thursday. He then heard an explosion and saw flames shooting up about three meters (10 feet) from the car, the daily said.