TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 58-year-old woman for allegedly keeping the corpse of her mother in the residence they share in Machida City for several months, reports the Sankei Shimbun (July 17).
On Monday, officers entered the residence, located in the Honmachida area, and discovered the decayed corpse likely belonging to the mother of Rika Nakajima atop a futon in a bedroom.
The following day, police arrested Nakajima on suspicion of abandoning a corpse. “Since we were living on the survivor’s pension of my father, I thought I could not exist if it were known that my mother had died,” the suspect told the Machida Police Station.
Based on questioning of the suspect, her mother died due to an illness at the age of 96 in March.
Prior to the discovery, a local resident alerted the management company for the residence, saying they had not seen the mother of the suspect for an extended period.
Police are now investigating whether the suspect unjustly received pension payments.
