On June 1st, the skeletal remains of a man were found in an apartment in the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo.
This is itself is unpleasant, but perhaps more disturbing is the fact that police suspect they are the remains of someone who died alone there 20 years ago. As beside the body was a newspaper dated 1984, leading investigators to believe that the man had been reading it just before he died.
It turns out that the dead man used to work for a Tokyo-based construction company, and the apartment his body was found in belonged to the firm. It’s thought that the man, who was 57 at the time, began using the room without the company’s permission. And judging by what happened there, without its knowledge too.
What the company did when the man suddenly stopped showing up for work wasn’t reported, but what his family did paints a very lonely picture. Basically they did nothing. His wife, children, and other relatives never asked the police to search for him…
Resulting in this very sad story 20 years down the line.
James says
Man, that really IS depressing. How could his family not even look into it? Wow.
pam says
What’s also weird about that story is that an apartment could stand utterly unopened for 20 years.
Lee says
Yeah, it’s a strange story. Even if the comany has gone bankrupt, that doesn’t explain the property not being checked out.
And whilst we know nothing about the dead man, for nobody to look into his disappearance is very sad indeed.
Avi Solomon says
It’s not so different from leaving our aged parents in ‘old age homes’ and conveniently ‘forgetting’ about them.
keyzone says
An apartment that was unopened for 20 years? Somehow it is quite unlikely.