An extraordinary and shocking case has come to light in Japan, where a 75-year-old woman admitted to keeping her deceased daughter’s body in a household freezer for two decades. The incident occurred in Ami, a town in the Ibaraki region.

Bizimyol.info reports, citing local media, that the woman, identified as Keiko Mori, went to police on Tuesday accompanied by a relative and confessed that she had hidden her daughter’s body for years. According to Mori, her daughter’s name was Makiko, born in 1975.

“My daughter died 20 years ago. I was worried the smell of the body would spread throughout the house, so I bought a freezer and placed the body inside,” Mori told investigators.

Police later searched her home with Mori present and discovered the body of a woman inside the freezer, found in a head-down, kneeling position. Due to the prolonged passage of time, the remains were severely decomposed. Authorities have ordered a forensic examination to determine the cause of death.

Mori has been taken into custody, and the investigation is ongoing.

Unusual cases of this kind are not unheard of in Japan, where social isolation and the phenomenon of kodokushi—“lonely deaths”—have become increasingly common in an aging society. Experts note that psychological collapse and grief following the loss of loved ones sometimes push individuals into extreme and incomprehensible actions. This case has once again highlighted the country’s deep-rooted social and psychological challenges.

Qadir, Bizimyol.info