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Nine found dead in Japan in apparent suicides
Associated Press
Published February 6, 2005
TOKYO - Nine bodies were found in two cars in central Japan in what appeared to be the country's latest group suicides, police said Saturday.
One group of six people was found on an isolated farm road south of Tokyo by a farmer who noticed people slumped over in a vehicle. Investigators found three men and two women in their 20s and one woman in her 40s, said T. Morishita, an investigator from the Misaki police station in Kanagawa prefecture.
The other car, with the bodies of one man and two women, was discovered in front of an empty vacation home in a resort area farther west, said an official at the Shimoda police station.
In both vehicles, charcoal stoves were found on the floorboards and the windows were sealed with tape from the inside. All nine appeared to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
It was not clear if the two cases were related. The vehicles were about 60 miles apart.
Japan has been the scene of a slew of suicide pacts in recent months, many thought to have been plotted by people who met over the Internet.
Police had not yet determined if any of those found Saturday met on the Web.
[Last modified February 6, 2005, 00:23:11]
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