HYOGO (TR) – Police in Kobe City have arrested a 50-year-old woman after the dismembered corpse of her ex-husband was discovered stuffed inside a large freezer inside an apartment, reports NHK (June 24).
Aki Mochizuki, an unemployed resident of Chuo Ward, was taken into custody late on Tuesday on suspicion of abandoning a body. Upon her arrest, she admitted to the allegations and reportedly hinted to investigators that she also killed him.
“I did a terrible thing, so I have no excuses,” Mochizuki told police.
According to investigators, Mochizuki is accused of hiding the severed remains of her ex-husband, Yutaka Nishiguchi, inside a large freezer left in an apartment in Chuo Ward from around 2012 until the 20th of this month. Nishiguchi was a former resident of the apartment.
The grisly discovery was made on June 20. After police brought Mochizuki in for initial questioning, she voluntarily contacted authorities on the night of June 22 to confess her involvement in the crime.
Police estimate that the victim died around December 2011. Bizarrely, official records show that Mochizuki and the victim finalized their divorce in December 2012 — approximately a full year after his estimated time of death.
While the statute of limitations for the crime of abandoning a corpse is typically three years in Japan, police determined the charge remains valid. Authorities concluded that because the suspect was legally married to the victim at the time of his death, she had a legal obligation to conduct a proper burial. Since she failed to do so and the concealment was ongoing, the statute of limitations did not expire.
Police are now investigating the exact circumstances surrounding Nishiguchi’s death, focusing on Mochizuki’s hints that she committed the murder.
