Sonobe Elementary School in Nantan, a mountainous city of about 30,000 people in central Kyoto Prefecture, was temporarily closed on April 14, I was told.

When I visited the school, the usual chorus of children’s cheerful voices was nowhere to be heard. The schoolyard lay poignantly desolate and still.

The chirping of Japanese bush warblers and sparrows echoed across the grounds, only deepening the eerie silence.

A body found on April 13 in a wooded area of the city was identified as Yuki Adachi, an 11-year-old boy who attended the school and had been missing for three weeks, Kyoto prefectural police said on April 14.

Investigators suspect he........

© The Asahi Shimbun