Japan arrests woman for keeping daughter's body in freezer for 20 years

Japanese police said Thursday they had arrested a 75-year-old woman who allegedly confessed to keeping the body of her daughter in a freezer for two decades.

Investigators on Tuesday found the body of an adult woman in a deep freezer at the home of Keiko Mori in Ibaraki prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, said a local police spokesman on condition of anonymity.

Mori "said it was her daughter", Makiko, who was born in 1975 and would be 49 or 50-years-old if alive, the spokesman said.

"Decay was advancing," he added, noting that an autopsy would be conducted to determine the cause of death.

Mori came to police on Tuesday 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 the 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 Makiko.

She had been living alone since the death of her husband earlier this month, the spokesman said. 

AFP