SAKURAI, Nara -- A company president has been found dead with strangulation marks on his neck on the premises of his company's facility here, police said.

Prefectural police suspect that the victim, 61-year-old Masamichi Tanimoto, was murdered, and are poised to conduct an autopsy on his body to determine the cause of his death.

At around 4:20 p.m. on Monday, Tanimoto, president of the Tanimoto Sekizai stone sales company, was found lying face-down on the premises of the firm's exhibition hall in Sakurai by his wife, who alerted police.

Investigators who examined his body found strangulation marks on his neck and bloodstains on his face.

Tanimoto left his home in the Nara Prefecture village of Yamazoe at around 9 a.m. on Sunday in his car, but failed to come back by that night. After he failed to respond to his wife's calls to his mobile phone, she submitted a missing person's report on him to local police.

Tanimoto's car was found abandoned at a location about one kilometer east of the exhibition hall where his body was subsequently found.

Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights reserved. Mainichi features the best news in Japan, current news in Japan, Japan news in English, Japan business news, Tokyo Japan news, and Japan entertainment news. Mainichi News is syndicated in accordance with editorial regulations: personal and noncommercial purposes.

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