Japanese police have made a shocking discovery involving a 56-year-old restaurant owner, Nobuhiko Suzuki, who hid his deceased father's body inside a wardrobe for over two years to avoid the financial burden of holding a funeral. According to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), Suzuki concealed the body after his 86-year-old father died in January 2023.
Concern among neighbors arose after Suzuki, who runs a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo, did not open his establishment for over a week. Alarmed by his sudden disappearance, they alerted the police. When officers visited his home to perform a welfare check, they found the skeletal remains of his father tucked away in a wardrobe.
During questioning, Suzuki admitted to hiding the corpse and cited his dire financial situation as the primary reason. "The funeral was expensive," Suzuki told authorities, explaining that he simply could not afford the cost of traditional ceremonies. He further stated that he found his father lifeless upon returning home one day and, overwhelmed by both guilt and resentment, made the decision to hide the body instead of reporting the death.
Authorities revealed that while Suzuki initially struggled with feelings of guilt over his actions, he later rationalized them by blaming his father for much of his personal suffering. Following the grim discovery, police arrested Suzuki and are now investigating him on additional charges of pension fraud, suspecting that he continued to claim his deceased father’s pension payments during the concealment.
The case highlights the growing financial pressures surrounding death in Japan. A survey conducted by San Holdings Inc. showed that the average cost of a funeral in Japan is about 1.3 million yen (roughly US$8,900), though the expense has decreased slightly since the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people opt for smaller, simpler ceremonies. Despite the drop, funerals remain a significant burden, with over 60 percent of those surveyed expecting costs to remain under 1 million yen.
Unfortunately, Suzuki's case is not an isolated incident. Japan has seen several similar cases in recent years. In 2023, another 56-year-old unemployed man was found to have kept his deceased mother’s body at home for three years, from 2019 to 2022, to avoid funeral expenses and continue collecting her pension payments, totaling around 2 million yen. He eventually confessed in court, admitting that her pension was his sole means of survival.
These incidents point to a troubling intersection of financial hardship, social isolation, and the stigmatization of poverty in Japan, prompting a deeper conversation about societal support structures for the elderly and economically vulnerable populations.
