Head found on mountain in Hiroshima

MATSUE, Shimane Pref. (Kyodo) A young woman's severed head was found Friday on a mountain in Hiroshima Prefecture and police are investigating to determine if the victim is a female college student who vanished late last month in neighboring Shimane.

Investigators said the facial features "highly resemble" those of Miyako Hiraoka, 19, a freshman at the University of Shimane, who disappeared on the night of Oct. 26.

The head was discovered near the summit of 1,223-meter Mount Garyu in Kita-Hiroshima by a mushroom hunter at around 1:45 p.m., the police said. It was lying about 10 meters below a cliff near a road.

Because there was no blood near the spot where the head was found, the woman was believed slain and beheaded elsewhere, the police said. No belongings were found nearby.

Hiroshima Prefectural Police are technically treating the case now as a dismemberment of a corpse but plan to launch a full-fledged murder probe.

They are trying to determine the victim's identity via an autopsy and DNA analysis.

Hiraoka disappeared while returning home from her part-time job at a Hamada eatery.

She was last seen leaving the restaurant at around 9:15 p.m. She lived in a student dormitory 1 km away from the restaurant.

Hiraoka has not answered her cell phone, and on Nov. 2, Shimane police listed her as missing and released her photo to the public.

News that a young woman's severed head was found has shocked Hiraoka's friends, although the deceased has yet to be identified.

"I learned the news during a class through an e-mail from a friend," said a female freshman who lives in the same dorm as Hiraoka. "I don't want to jump to conclusions."

She said her parents and friends are worried and are e-mailing and telephoning her, urging her to be careful.

"I will never go home alone," she said.

A 19-year-old male freshman said he learned about the finding of the head from a TV news program earlier in the day. "I was watching TV with a friend. Then I heard myself saying, 'No, I don't want to believe this.' "

The towns of Hamada and Kita-Hiroshima abut each other on the prefectural border. Mount Garyu is about 25 km southeast of central Hamada.