Brothers Arrested For Living With Their Father's Dead Body For 2 Years

A pair of Japanese brothers were arrested for pocketing their father’s pension money for two years after the parent passed away. The brothers, one of whom is unemployed, had been living with their deceased father’s corpse in the same house in Akashi, southern Hyogo Prefecture in Japan, since December 2019.

Cops arrived at the brothers’ house on Wednesday and found the father’s remains on the first floor of the house.

Kazuhito Yamada, 49, and his unemployed brother Takuhito, 42, lost their father, who was in his 80s, two years ago. Instead of alerting the authorities about their father’s passing, the brothers kept up the lie that he was alive so they could swindle his pension money, according to Latin Times.

On different occasions, officials from the welfare office arrived at the house to check on the elderly man’s wellbeing. Each time, however, the brothers would send them away by giving some excuse about the father being out and unable to meet them. Meanwhile, the man’s body was inside the house the entire time, as reported by Japan Today.

The brothers kept their deceased father's mummified corpse in the tatami mat room on the first floor of their house. But they couldn't keep the death secret for much longer as welfare officials grew suspicious and decided to call it in. The cops were informed that the elderly man had not been seen in quite a while.

During interrogation, the unemployed younger brother Takuhito admitted that he needed his father’s pension money for his own expense and decided did not to report his death.

A similar case was reported earlier this year after an Arkansas woman was caught sleeping in the same house with her mother’s body. Geanee Pike, 54, was accused of keeping her mother’s body wrapped in newspapers so that she could continue wihdrawing money from her mother’s bank account, according to New York Post. The elderly woman was last seen alive in August 2020.

Pike told investigators that her mother owed her money and promised to pay her back using her Social Security disability checks. After her death, the daughter lived with her mother’s body in the house so she could continue withdrawing money from her bank account. The woman was arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse and financial identity fraud.