Police in Tokyo have arrested a 61-year-old man after he showed up at a police station in Adachi Ward with a woman's body in his car.
According to police, Seigo Nakamichi, who is unemployed, spent the night of Nov 10 at a love hotel in Mobara, Chiba Prefecture, with Mikiko Okada, 56, whom he had known for about three years, Fuji TV reported.
Nakamichi told police that Okada did not wake up on the morning of Nov 11 and he was not sure what had happened to her. He did not call 110, but instead put her body in his car and drove to her home, picked up her 17-year-old daughter and then proceeded a police station in Ayase, Adachi Ward, at around 8 p.m. that night.
Police said Nakamichi has been charged with abandonment of a body. There were no external injuries on Okada's body and an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.
© Japan Today
26 Comments
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sensei258
How is it abandonment if he brought her with him to the koban?
serendipitous
So he picks up the daughter of his dead 'girlfriend' in his car and takes her as well as her dead mother's body to the police station. Can't imagine the conversation during that drive....
Strangerland
'Abandonment' is a translation of the Japanese word 遺棄. He wasn't charged with 'abandoning a body', that's English. He was charged with 死体遺棄. The nuance is different in Japanese, however, we are limited to expressing the charge in English to the English translation we have.
The point here is to stop getting hung up on the word 'abandonment'. In Japanese it means something along the lines of abandonment of responsibility, or the abandonment of proper care, or obligation.
Remember, we are reading Japanese stories in English. The English will never be exactly the same as the Japanese.
And for those who want to read further: http://dic.search.yahoo.co.jp/search?ei=UTF-8&p=%E9%81%BA%E6%A3%84&stype=full&fr=dic
SenseNotSoCommon
What did he do all day, a romantic coastal drive?
Jason Santana
How is this abandonment? The body was in the trunk of his car! Abandonment would be taking it out, putting it in front of the police station and driving off.
Dan Lewis
Agree. Weird, but this is not "abandonment"
FizzBit
Well, they had to arrest him for something until an investigation is done. Not that difficult to comprehend.
descendent
Pedantry aside, that had to have been an awkward drive with the daughter.
Thunderbird
hey in Japan if you get a rusting bicycle from the bushes to cycle around and get stopped, you will be arrested for "possession of discarded items", what the actual f? Be careful, the laws here can be as crazy as the place itself.
kaygee
"Hey your moms in the car" wait for it...... wait for it....
Ok, now its awkward.
Chop Chop
He was charged for illegal abandonment of a body at Police Station.
kurisupisu
So, whatever he is being charged with is clearly incorrect then.Abandonment or disposal of a body is clearly not the issue is it?The charge should be attempted murder until due process can be completed ie an autopsy conducted and cause of death determined.
bones
Well they went to a love hotel, sooooooooo...
turbotsat
How is the nuance different?
It seems likely that by taking the body to her family he left the decision of what to do to her family. If he wanted to dodge responsibility he could have dropped the body somewhere. JT: "He did not call 110, but instead put her body in his car and drove to her home, picked up her 17-year-old daughter and then proceeded a police station in Ayase, Adachi Ward, at around 8 p.m. that night."
602miko
A love hotel! Maybe feeling shy that's why he didn't call 119?
fuzzylogic
what's this the new trend (corpse passengers) as times get hard than 29?
sensei258
I do appreciate your information, but for those of us who don't speak or read Japanese well, or didn't have access to the correct information, we MUST take the information at face value, thus the comments about "abandoning". If JT could pay somebody to correctly interpret it as "improper disposal of a body" or whatever, then we could comment on that.
Yubaru
The dude is 61 no J-Cultural taboo crap here, he's retired more than likely.
100 CPM
"Japanese man arrested after showing up at JP police station with JP woman's body in his car in Japan.
"Nakamichi told police that Okada did not wake up on the morning of Nov 11 and he was not sure what had happened to her."
So why didn't he call the 110 for medical assistance or notify hotel staff? (never move a body and call authorities is the J-rule)
Something creepy & fishy, he should have notified authorities at the "love hotel"
"bones Well they went to a love hotel, sooooooooo..." Yep!
Looks like he did not want the knowledge of them TOGETHER at a love hotel---if so why? Tthe big Japanese question..
Is this woman married? Was the get together a secret? Autopsy, and Blood toxicology?
The story indicates the j-man is unemployed, a J-cultural taboo
roughneck
61 year old took 56 year old to love hotel, and it was too much for her. No comments.
Strangerland
'Abandonment' is the word used in the legal translation of the law. See #190: http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/hourei/data/PC.pdf. As a side note, this is the actual law that they are charged under.
JT is using the official translation.
Strangerland
I said further down:
turbotsat
@SL
Isn't that the same in English? Abandoning a corpse means abandoning the responsibility of reporting it to the authorities. There isn't any obligation to carry it somewhere, in fact the authorities would likely rather it stay where it's at.
Strangerland
Please see earlier posts. The charge is correct.
If the cause of death is not yet determined, then there are no grounds to charge him with attempted murder, as they can't know if she was murdered. So this charge would actually be groundless, unlike the one he was charged with, which under Japanese law has grounds due to him not calling an ambulance, but rather bringing the body to the police station.