72-Year-Old Man Cremates Wife After Living With Her Corpse For 21 Years

A 72-year-old man in Thailand, who was reportedly living with his wife's corpse for 21 years, has finally cremated the woman.

Charn Janwatchakal had kept her body next to him in a small room where he slept, and even spoke to her as if she were still alive, The Straits Times reported.

Local media reports said the Phet Kasem Bangkok Foundation staff assisted the man in taking his wife’s coffin outside his home.

“Mum,” he cried when the woman's coffin was taken out of the house, “you are just going for a brief business and you’ll be back home again. It won’t be long, I promise,” The Nation Thailand reported.

Since the story became public, several netizens have called him the "endless love man" or man with "eternal love."

The incident came to light after Janwatchakal realized his dead wife might not get a proper ceremony if he died. He then contacted Phet Kasem Bangkok Foundation seeking help with cremation rituals. The foundation had been helping the man with food after he had an accident two months ago.

Prominent lawyer Nitithorn Kaewto visited Janwatchakal on Monday, and interviewed him. The lawyer recounted the old man lived without even electricity after the loss of his wife. His two sons also used to live with him; however, they moved out when he refused to cremate his wife.

It wasn't clear how he managed to preserve the corpse inside the coffin.

The old man told Kaewto that he had graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy at Chulalongkorn University before becoming a medic in the Royal Thai Army. His wife had been an official at the Public Health Ministry.

There have been several incidents in the past, where people have been known to cling to their loved ones after their death and not cremate the bodies until an alarm was raised. However, this incident seems to be the longest time that a person has lived with a corpse for more than two decades.

In 2020, a woman in India was detained for keeping her mother’s corpse for over eight months at her home. The police arrived at the home in the city of Mumbai after receiving complaints from the 53-year-old woman’s neighbors that she was throwing garbage outside her window, only to find the body in one of the rooms.