You don’t have to abandon a body to legally abandon it.

Sadly, cases of people abandoning the remains of loved ones are an ongoing problem in Japan. The reasons can vary widely from those hoping to keep cashing in pension checks to those who simply lack the ability or emotional stability to make the proper arrangements. However, a recent case is testing the boundaries of what it means to “abandon” a deceased body.

At approximately 1:30 p.m. on 18 November, a groundskeeper at the Shitennoji Yamatobetsuin cemetery in Nara City discovered someone’s right wrist protruding from the ground. The Nara Prefectural Police were called in to exhume the body and conduct an autopsy which determined the body belonged to a woman at least 70 years old who likely died earlier the same month. No cause of death was determined but there were no signs of foul play.

The subsequent investigation led to the arrest of 71-year-old Ryuichi Kurata of Suita City in neighboring Osaka Prefecture on charges of abandoning a corpse. Kurata admitted to burying the body and said it was his mother whom he lived with. Kurata was also already leasing the plot where he buried the body.

While it’s clearly not the textbook way to inter a loved one, couldn’t it also be a stretch to say Kurata “abandoned” the body by burying it in a cemetery plot that he had the rights to?

The first issue is that people’s bodies are rarely buried in Japan. Cremation is by far the most common method and the remaining ash and bones are placed in an urn which is then stored in a rather small box-like space under the grave called a kotsutsuboshitsu (“bone urn room”).

▼ Japanese cemeteries kind of look like little cities from a certain angle. Each monument will have the kotsutsuboshitsu either inside it or directly underneath it. That big pile in the middle are jizo statues in honor of miscarried, stillborn, or aborted babies.

Image: Wikipedia / heiwa4126

One benefit of this style is that it saves a lot of space. Graveyards in Japan are often dense clusters of stone monuments, but it is possible to get some more spacious plots too if desired. It would seem likely that Kurata had leased one of the larger ones and also possibly hadn’t set up a monument yet.

▼ A satellite image of Yamatobetsuin cemetery shows a large number of empty plots that are just bare dirt. A 180 square-centimeter plot there costs 4 million yen up front and 14,000 yen per year in maintenance fees.

Since graves are usually shared among family members, it’s not strange for Kurata to put his mother into a grave that he leased. It’s just extremely strange for him to have buried the whole uncremated body by himself and that puts him on the hook for breach of contract along with a whole range of criminal charges like trespassing, vandalism, and obstruction of business to name a few.

However, the reports say he was arrested for the crime of abandoning a corpse, so to find out if that holds water let’s check the legal definition of it. The crime of abandoning a corpse is referred to in Article 190 of the Penal Code, which states:

“Those who damage, abandon, or take possession of a corpse, bones, hair, or anything placed in a coffin shall be punished by imprisonment for no more than three years.”

The concept of “abandon” here is rather open to interpretation but it just so happens that interpretation was really put to the test recently in the case of a Vietnamese national who was accused of abandoning the bodies of her two newborn twins that died just after birth. She had delivered the twins in her dormitory room and after overcoming the shock of what happened, she wrapped their bodies in towels, placed them in a cardboard box along with a letter of apology and farewell, taped the box shut, and put it on a shelf. The box was discovered two days later after she received a medical examination that revealed her situation to the authorities.

The woman was found guilty of abandoning the bodies despite the fact that she kept them in her home. In general, the concept of “abandonment” includes concealment such as when a murderer buries their victims in their backyard. In the case of the woman, she had placed the bodies in an unmarked cardboard box which is concealment and thus abandonment in the eyes of the law.

However, the case was taken to the Supreme Court which overturned her guilty verdict. Their ruling meant that mere concealment should not constitute abandonment and instead gave it an interpretation of denying someone’s body the proper respect after death and not interring them in accordance with social customs. In the case of the woman, it could not be established that she didn’t intend to give them a proper cremation at a later time and she was found not guilty of abandoning a corpse.

▼ News report of the Supreme Court’s ruling which shows the mother’s supporters cheering on the overturned verdict.

Applying the Supreme Court’s interpretation of abandonment to Kurata’s case, it might be hard to argue that burying a body in a grave is not in accordance with social customs. Much like the case of the Vietnamese woman, it will likely boil down to the very fine details of everything he did from the moment of death to his arrest.

It’s unfortunate that this law has to be applied to many people who appear to be simply too overwhelmed with grief to know what to do, but without a better social support system we may continue to see these things happen.

It should also be noted that as of this writing, the police are still trying to confirm the woman’s body is in fact that of Kurata’s mother. If there happens to be a surprise with that detail… just forget everything I said.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun, Esora Law, E-Gov, Asahi Shimbun
Featured image: Pakutaso 1, 2 (Edited by SoraNews24)
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