Two medical professionals were detained for covering up a patient’s murder at a hospital in Aomori Prefecture.

The former hospital director and another physician were detained by police in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, on Friday on suspicion of concealing the 2023 patient murder committed by another hospitalized man.

According to police, Seietsu Takahashi, 73, was sleeping in their shared room on the evening of March 12, 2023, when he was repeatedly stabbed in the face with the handle of a toothbrush by a man who was admitted to Michinoku Kinen Hospital at the time for alcoholism, Kyodo News reported.

When a nurse went to the room after hearing a disturbance at approximately 11:45 p.m., she discovered Takahashi bleeding on his bed. On March 13, at approximately 10:10 a.m., he was pronounced deceased.

The hospital did not report the incident to police, but police were tipped off by a hospital employee at around 6:20 p.m. that same day. An autopsy attributed the Takahashi’s death to intracranial injuries and blood loss.

On Friday, police arrested Takashi Ishiyama, 61, who was the hospital director at the time, and his 60-year-old brother Satoshi Ishiyama, who was the Takahashi’s attending physician, on suspicion of covering up the crime.

Police said the two suspects listed pneumonia as the cause of death on the death certificate given to the family of the murdered man. They told the family that Takahashi had fallen out of his bed.

The man who killed Takahashi was sentenced to 17 years in prison.