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Police in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, on Friday arrested a 90-year-old woman on suspicion of abandoning the body of her 52-year-old son at their apartment.
Police said the body had decayed but that the woman, Shizuko Nagatani, said it was her second-oldest son with whom she lived.
According to police, Nagatani’s caregiver visited the apartment at around 10 a.m. Thursday but there was no response. Concerned that something might have happened to her, she contacted police.
When police entered the apartment at around 1:40 p.m., they found the body. Nagatani, who was not at home, was located in a downtown area. She confirmed the body was that of her son but gave no information on how or when he died.
Police said an autopsy will be conducted to determined the cause of death.
© Japan Today
9 Comments
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Chip Star
90 year olds have a very low rate of recidivism.
Do the hustle
Well, life in prison has a less significant meaning to a 90 year old.
jcapan
Wow, that's the exact opposite for the normal story.
Vince Black
I wonder if the son was receiving any benefits? She could have just been pocketing them
Kokuzi
Let's not be too harsh, folks... She may have dementia and simply been unable to deal with the fact that her son stopped responding at some point. It's a sad situation, regardless of what happened.
Realization
Yes Kokuzi, agreed at" She may have dementia and simply been unable to deal with the fact that her son stopped responding at some point. "
After-all she is mother, so please comments carefully
JenniSchiebel
I agree 100%.
oyatoi
“She may have dementia and simply been unable to deal with the fact that her son stopped responding at some point.”
While a touching explanation, something tells me that dementia, if she did suffer from it, is only tangentially implicated in what transpired here rather than being the full get out of jail free card you want to believe. She wasn’t at home, which suggests that mobility isn’t an issue, she understood and was capable of confirming that the deceased was her son, but did not provide additional clarification about what happened, and that this refusal is the reason she has been arrested. If she had diminished capacity, the police wouldn’t have arrested her.
Equally plausible scenarios; the mother, fed up and at her wit’s end catering to a hikkikomori son’s needs, either poisoned him or let him starve through willful neglect or increasing inability to minister to said needs. Or, try this on for size. Put upon and cruelly mistreated son, takes own life in ultimate rebuke for a lifetime of mistreatment. Given that this is another one of those fragmentary pose as many questions as it answers stories, such speculation is entirely justified. Got another? Pick a number and stand in line.
Chop Chop
How can she live with her son dead body that was badly decomposed?
Perhaps, the corpse was badly smelling.
What police will do with 90 years old woman?