Japanese woman arrested for storing daughter’s corpse in freezer for two decades

TOKYO: Japanese police on Thursday announced the arrest of a 75-year-old woman who allegedly admitted to storing her daughter’s body in a freezer for the past 20 years.

Investigators said they discovered the remains of an adult woman on Tuesday inside a deep freezer at the home of Keiko Mori in Ibaraki prefecture, northeast of Tokyo.

According to a police spokesman, Mori identified the body as that of her daughter, Makiko, who was born in 1975 and would now be 49 or 50 years old.

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

Mori came to the 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.