Police at the scene of the fire yesterday. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Police today started a homicide investigation after confirming a fire in a Christchurch house where four bodies were found yesterday was deliberately lit.
Post mortem examinations were completed today on two of the four bodies discovered when firefighters entered a suburban Riccarton house just before 7.30am yesterday.
At
least three of the dead were believed to be members of a Japanese family.
Police tonight named two of the victims as Junichi Tomonaga, 58, his mother Michiko, aged 80.
The names of the other two would probably be released tomorrow after all the post mortems were done.
Police said earlier today the Tomonagas' 19-year-old daughter, Yaeh, was not among the victims as incorrectly reported by media earlier today.
Detective Inspector Greg Williams said tonight the investigation had been upgraded to a murder inquiry.
The scene examination at the house had revealed that the fire was deliberately lit.
"Our focus is to identify who is responsible for these deaths," Mr Williams said.
Police were expecting the investigation would be long and complex.
Earlier today Mr Williams said the "concentrated examination" of the house would probably take several more days.
It was revealed last night that the formerly wealthy Tomonaga family had fallen on hard times after getting involved with a convicted fraudster in 1998.
Mr Tomonaga had been working as a driver for a radiator reconditioning company and the family faced being made homeless as the two-storey weatherboard Puriri St house in which they shared a flat, was due to be demolished to make way for new units.
The family came to New Zealand in the late 1980s and lived in their own Redcliffs home before renting in Puriri St, a leafy neighbourhood in the Canterbury University precincts.
The Tomonagas had two sons -- one living overseas and the other in Christchurch, The Press newspaper reported today.
A former neighbour remembered the family as "lovely, lovely, quiet neighbours".
Neighbour Rob Hempseed, who lived in nearby Hinau St, said yesterday he'd seen the "impeccably dressed" family playing baseball together regularly in Fendalton park, close to where they lived.
Mr Hempseed said he walked past their house regularly while walking his dog and believed the Tomonagas had lived there for at least 18 months.
The family were also keen tenpin bowlers, with Mrs Tomonaga bowling for the Garden City team in inter-district competitions and the rest of the family members bowling several nights a week.
- NZPA
