Japan woman arrested for keeping daughter’s body in freezer for 20 years
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TOKYO – Japanese police said on Sept 25 that they have arrested a 75-year-old woman who allegedly confessed to keeping the body of her daughter in a freezer for two decades.
Investigators on Sept 23 found the body of an adult woman in a deep freezer at the home of Keiko Mori in Ibaraki prefecture, north-east of Tokyo, said a local police spokesman on condition of anonymity.
Mori “said it was her daughter”, Ms Makiko, who was born in 1975 and would be 49 or 50 years old if she was alive, the spokesman said.
“Decay was advancing,” he added, noting that an autopsy would be conducted to determine the cause of death.
Mori went to the police on Sept 23 with a relative to report that she had kept the body in the freezer.
When investigators visited the house with Mori, they found the body dressed in a T-shirt and underwear, kneeling face-down inside the freezer, the spokesman said.
Mori was arrested on suspicion of abandoning a body.
She told investigators that the smell was filling the house so she bought the freezer and placed her daughter’s body inside, according to the spokesman.
Mori had several children, but police did not disclose how many or what they had told investigators about Ms Makiko.
Mori had been living alone since the death of her husband earlier in September, the spokesman said. AFP
