A man in japan has been arrested in connection with nine bodies which were found dumped in a cooler box inside an apartment.

The suspected man has been identified as a 27-year-old Takahiro Shiraishi who has been living in the flat since August.

It is believed that he used the saw found by police in the flat to dismember the bodies in the bathtub before storing the parts in cooler boxes.

Two severed heads were among the body parts discovered.

“It’s true that I tried to hide the bodies of the people I killed to destroy evidence,” Shiraishi was quoted as saying by police.

Police made the horrific discovery while looking for a 23-year-old woman who had been reported as missing a few days earlier. Her brother became alarmed when he realised his sister had visited a suicide website and posted messages that she wanted to kill herself.

It is believed that this is how she and Shiraishi first made contact.

CCTV footage confirmed that she and Shiraishi met up.

Neighbours reported that they never heard any strange noises coming from the flat, but that there had been very horrible smells.

“I thought it smelled like sewage,” a neighbour was quoted as saying. “It was something I never smelled before.”

DNA tests will now be carried out in an effort to identify the bodies.

Japan has an amazingly low crime rate, which has been declining over the past 13 years. According to The Economist, a single person was shot dead in the whole of 2015.

The key to the country’s success in stamping out crime seems to be its relatively large police force, which remains big even though cops increasingly have little to do.