A 48-year-old Japanese woman was arrested on Friday for hiding her mother’s corpse in a freezer in her apartment for a decade. Yumi Yoshino hid the corpse as she feared eviction if the death was discovered. Yoshino said she hid the body as she “didn’t want to move out” of the home she shared with her mother.
The body was discovered by a cleaner in a freezer inside a closet after Yoshino was forced to leave the apartment mid-January. She had been missing rent payments. Yoshino’s mother, who was named on the lease documents of the apartment, is said to have died at age 60. The apartment is located in a municipal housing complex in Katsushika Ward in Tokyo. An autopsy could not determine the time and cause of the woman’s death. No visible wounds were found on the woman’s body, though the body was bent to fit the freezer, the police told AFP.
Yoshino was arrested in a hotel in the city of Chiba near Tokyo, where she had been living after the eviction. Yoshino owes about 1.1 million Yen ($10,500) in rent.
