7 fetuses found under floor of unoccupied Tokyo house

the fetuses were those of stillbirths and abortions and there is no criminal act involved.

Japan just gets stranger by the day!

"no criminal act involved"

Yet every other day we read about people getting charged with "improper disposal of a corpse".

Stepoutside: You beat me to it. However, I would imagine this has to do with the legal definition of a body/corpse. That definition probably doesn't include fetuses.

*I'm not saying this is correct or reasonable, I'm just providing a plausible explanation.

If everything was so innocent then why keep the jars hidden under a floor?

The house was obstetrics and doctors died 3 - 5 decades ago. It seems nobody may know about this and they probably kept fetuses for study.

Why under the floor? If they were for study wouldn't they be on a shelf. In an office or Lab. Under the floor would suggest skullduggery of some sort. But too late now to investigate best swept under the carpet so to speek.

Yet every other day we read about people getting charged with "improper disposal of a corpse".

Well the guy who owned the house died a long time ago. So the only option is to arrest his corpse or confiscate his bones and ashes for evidence.

wonder what 'under the floor' means - concealed under the floorboards? or in a crawlspace/basement kind of arrangement? if the latter you'd think the jars would've been discovered when the house was being sold, during some kind of pest/engineering inspection process or somelike.

i imagine the termite guy who lifted the floorboard/crawlspace would've received the shock of his life seeing that when it was most unexpected!!

wonder what 'under the floor' means - concealed under the floorboards? or in a crawlspace/basement kind of arrangement?

Most Japanese houses have a trapdoor style storage compartment in the kitchen floor, for storing non perishables or curing pickles, etc.

As for the reason why they were there, the article is pretty self explanatory.

The long deceased obstetrician probably didn’t know how to, or want to pay to properly dispose of specimens preserved in caustic chemicals.

Most Japanese houses have a trapdoor style storage compartment in the kitchen floor, for storing non perishables or curing pickles, etc.

you would think that something like an 'underfloor storage' in the kitchen would've been opened on the first day. i have a feeling 'under the floor' means more hidden/concealed in this particular case.

You’d be surprised how some people, especially elderlies never fully investigate every nook and cranny.

The article also says she recently bought the house and termite exterminators found the jars. She most likely hadn’t moved in yet and was planning to after the extermination.

Those underfloor kitchen storages are basically a plastic bin suspended under the floor, and can be removed to serve as an access point to the crawl space.

Even if legally it is not considered abandonment of corpses, it still does not strike me as the proper procedure for hazardous materials/tissue/blood disposal. Surely it is criminal for a doctor to squirrel samples/waste back home, a danger to public health and hygiene!

My first reaction was the same as @tokyo. My friends father found a hanging body while doing his daily morning walk. He never walks there anymore, after fifteen years.

But zygotes and fetuses are not human beings yet, so let’s not get so dramatic.

Goodlucktoyou, you’re correct about zygotes but technically a foetus a foetus until birth. If, as the Police believe, they are stillborn or aborted there should be an audit trail. Given the unusual circumstance of the foetuses discovery, it’s perfectly reasonable to speculate as to why they should have fallen outside the system of management of biological materials produced by the obstetrics clinic. Its feasible that the foetuses have been preserved without permission, it certainly warrants further investigation.

Under the floor was due to lack of closet space, and a dark environment is actually better for foetuses and the chemicals that store them as they are photolight sensitive.

@Haruka

I was about to add the same.

And also, that preserved specimens of all kinds including, yes, human fetuses and body parts can be bought by anyone with a lab supplies catalog.

So then the original owner could have openly displayed the baby-filled jar at the stoop of his front door or nearby garden?

So then the original owner could have openly displayed the baby-filled jar at the stoop of his front door or nearby garden?

In poor taste, yes, but not illegal.

Such items are usually displayed at museums, laboratories or medical schools.

Poor that young lady who has to bear with that creepy memory for many many more years to come.