Japanese Man Who Never Left His House Spent Weeks Living With Dead Mom

A Japanese man who refused to leave his home reportedly spent weeks living with the corpse of his mother who died at the home.

The Kanagawa Prefectural Police arrested the 49-year-old male in Yokohama’s Kanazawa Ward for leaving his mother’s dead body to rot in their home while continuing to reside there.

The man is among the half a million people in Japan who are called the hikikomori — people who shut themselves off from society. Hikikomoris, who often stay in their houses or even their bedrooms for indefinite periods, are able to survive with the help of the parents. In most cases, parents would continue providing for the basic needs of their children into adulthood.

Based on the investigation, the mother, aged 76, has died sometime in mid-October in the home she shared with her eldest child. On November 4, weeks after her death, her 45-year-old daughter came to pay them a visit and she saw that only her brother was there to greet her,

The daughter would later discover that her brother had placed their mother’s corpse in her bedroom after she collapsed and died in the kitchen weeks ago. The son was arrested the next day and charged with “corpse abandonment” for not properly handling his mother’s lifeless body, reports Soranews24.

However, despite his failure to report his mother’s death, the man is unlikely to face a harsh punishment considering his psychological state.

Described by the officers as someone “incapable of conversing with other people,” the unemployed son gave a written statement to the police, saying “I couldn’t do anything [after my mother died], so I decided to wait until the next time my sister came.”

Initial investigation suggests that no foul play was involved in the death of the mother whose body bore no visible wounds. The authorities are leaning towards the belief that her death was due to sickness or natural causes.