A 75-year-old woman in Japan has been arrested for keeping her daughter's body in a freezer for 20 years, police said today.
On Tuesday, the woman went to police with a family member to claim that she had kept a body in the freezer and that "it was her daughter" who had been born in 1975, a Japanese police spokesman told AFP.
Police officers who went to her home, located in the northeastern part of Tokyo, found the body of a woman, wrapped, wearing a T-shirt and underwear inside the refrigerator.
Police said that "the body was in an advanced state of decomposition" and that a forensic examination would be carried out to clarify the cause of death.
The woman, who was arrested on suspicion of abandoning a body, told police investigators that the smell had spread throughout the house and that she then bought the refrigerator to place her daughter's body there, according to a police spokesman.
"Twenty years ago, body odor filled the whole house, so I bought a refrigerator and put it in there," said the 75-year-old.
The woman, who had other children, had been living alone since her husband died a few weeks ago, the police spokesman explained.