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Police in Nara City, Nara Prefecture, on Tuesday arrested a 71-year-old man on suspicion of abandoning the body of his mother in a cemetery.
The body was found partially buried at an unused part of the cemetery on Monday, Sankei Shimbun reported. A cemetery employee called 110 at around 2:30 p.m. and said he could see what looked like a human hand a foot sticking up out of the ground, Sankei Shimbun reported.
Police said the suspect, Ryuichi Kuarata, told them his mother, who was in her 90s, died earlier this month.
The plot where the body was found is owned by Kurata's family, which led to him coming under scrutiny. The woman was buried in a place without a gravestone. There were signs of digging but no shovels or other tools were found.
© Japan Today
9 Comments
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tamanegi
The stuff of horror movies here sometimes. I expect he was planning to still accept her pension.
sakurasuki
People can do it by themselves if someone in their family died but in Japan really want people to spend millions for funeral.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/09/26/national/social-issues/funeral-costs/
https://www.tokyoweekender.com/japan-life/news-and-opinion/japanese-funerals-expensive/
kiwi07
My first full time job was burying people at a cemetery. I didn't dig the graves, because that's a job that was done mechanically, but we did fill them in manually after the service was over and everyone had left. One thing that job taught me is just how hard it is to dig a proper grave as a hand dig. Once you get more than 60 cm or a couple of feet down, the ground is so hard and compacted that it becomes impractical with picks and shovels, unless it's like the old days and you and assistant use a day or two. That's the one thing many movies get wrong, where you see someone burying someone in a forest in a deep hole they quickly dug with a shovel. That's also why the phrase, 'buried in a shallow grave', is so prevalent in the crime section.
wallace
Burials are not permitted; instead, bodies must be cremated first. Last week, we interred our brother and sister in our Fuji family grave. With hundreds of graves, there isn't much space for a body. Perhaps this is similar to one of those pension scams.
Offwithyourarrogance
well at least he got the place correct
Alongfortheride
People judge too soon. How about the other option of him not being able to afford the costs involved in burial?
Daisaku
Local authorities will provide a cremation for about ¥20,000.
Jay
A 20,000 yen that a pensioner may not be able to afford.
Daisaku
Jay
Local authorities will provide a cremation for about ¥20,000.
You can make an arrangement or ask for stress welfare relief. I think he wanted to keep claiming the pension of his mother.