crime

52-year-old man arrested after keeping mother's body at home

9 Comments

Police in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, said Thursday they have arrested a 52-year-old unemployed man on suspicion of abandoning the body of his 80-year-old mother at their apartment.

According to police, Takashi Koizumi has admitted to leaving his mother’s body in her room after she died around mid-October, Sankei Shimbun reported. He was quoted as saying he had no money to pay for a funeral.

Police found the body after the building manager contacted them on Wednesday to say that a foul odor was coming from the apartment which was locked.

When police entered the apartment, they also found Koizumi’s 45-year-old brother in an emaciated condition. He is currently in hospital recovering.

Koizumi told police he stopped working after his mother became ill and that he didn't have much money for food.

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9 Comments
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Sadly this is nothing new, and probably will increase in the future as well. Sad system where people cant put their loved one's to rest!

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Nothing to backup with my allegations but I think he is just after his mom’s pension. Reporting the death means the end of his means of living.

All Japanese who has no means to bury their loved ones who has a domicile can seek assistance from the local government for a decent burial.

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The local city hall will do a funeral for a ¥20,000 (or less if they are completely destitute).

There were two adult males starving themselves to death due to having no income or support. there are option for people like this, but I fear their problem is not having no income. Their problem is having no education.

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Another sad story of a family in ‘shutdown mode’. In a state of inability to act. It’s an actual state of our nervous system. Check out Polyvagal theory for some new groundbreaking and jaw dropping insights into why these poor souls literally get frozen in time.

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Some people can't afford even to die!

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"He was quoted as saying he had no money to pay for a funeral."

Yeah, right. Well, maybe so, but a funeral is not necessary. Properly taking care of a corpse is. I'm quite sure the body can still be picked up and cremated for those who have no money, otherwise I shudder to think of all the corpses that would be lying about in poor areas. Sounds like this guy was hoping to keep getting mom's pension payments.

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The local city hall will do a funeral for a ¥20,000 (or less if they are completely destitute).

It's not like the local gov’t will just hand you the money and say " hey go bury your dead" but rather they will contact the funeral parlor to collect the body from your place or from hospital. After a couple of days of mourning, they will cremate the body and hands you the ashes in urn. Truely a very simple rites. If there's no place to bury ( like a family plot ), then, the services is done. Oh yes, they don’t offer non cremated services.

All of this done without money exchanging hands between you and the local gov't.

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I guess if you place the bones in a box and bury it at your own backyard, it's possible, but you can not just throw that anywhere unless it is cremated.

The only places you can possibly bury a whole corpses are foreigners' cemetery like Yokohama Foreigners Cemetery or Yokohama Gaijin Botchi.

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