A 75-year-old woman in Japan has been arrested after allegedly confessing to storing her daughter’s body in a freezer for over two decades, local police confirmed on Thursday.
Authorities 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. A police spokesperson, who requested anonymity, said the body was found after Mori voluntarily approached law enforcement with a relative to report the incident.
“Mori said it was her daughter,” the spokesperson revealed, identifying the deceased as Makiko, who was born in 1975 and would be 49 or 50 years old if still alive.
“Decay was advancing,” the spokesperson noted, adding that an autopsy would be carried out to determine the cause of death.
According to investigators, Mori led officers to the freezer, where they found the body clothed in a T-shirt and underwear, positioned face-down and kneeling inside the unit.
She was taken into custody on suspicion of abandoning a body. Mori reportedly told investigators that a smell had begun to fill the house, prompting her to purchase the freezer and place her daughter’s body inside.
While police confirmed that Mori had multiple children, they declined to disclose how many or what information, if any, the other family members provided regarding Makiko.
The elderly woman had been living alone since the death of her husband earlier this month, the police spokesperson added.
