Officers from the Otsu Police Station took Taeko Matsuiki, 50, into custody on charges of abandoning a corpse.
“Since she was dead, I dumped her body,” the suspect is quoted by police in admitting to the allegations.
On February 3, a passerby found a suitcase containing the body of Sumiko Matsuiki, 79, adrift at the mouth of the Morikoshi River.
Taeko, the second daughter of Sumiko, is believed to have put the body in the suitcase and dumped it near the river mouth two days before it was discovered.
The body of the victim was in the fetal position and contained no apparent external injuries. However, the vertebrae of the corpse was broken in a number of locations.
The suspect had been taking care of Sumiko, who was bedridden, for the last six months. Her mother’s husband died in a hospital on January 28. Investigators believe that Sumiko died at approximately the same time as her husband and are now attempting to determine whether there is a connection between the two incidents.
