Toronto Sun

Tuesday, April 9, 2002

Mom stashed her 6 dead tots

Tiny bodies found in closet

By AP Toronto Sun

TOKYO -- A 58-year-old woman has admitted giving birth to six babies whose badly decomposed bodies were found in a vacant apartment outside Tokyo, police said yesterday.

The woman said she delivered the last of the babies more than 10 years ago, police official Kazuhiko Nakanishi said.

Housekeepers found the bodies, five in plastic bags, in a closet on Sunday. The apartment is in Toda, a city 12 miles from Tokyo.

Police were questioning the woman, whose name was not made public. It was not clear how the babies died or why she kept the bodies, said Nakanishi, who declined to provide further details.

WRAPPED IN BAGS

News reports said the woman's daughter began renting the apartment 12 years ago with her husband. After the couple divorced, the mother and her son moved in with the younger woman.

The bodies were discovered when the son, the last person to live in the apartment, moved out and called in a cleaning service, television news reports said.

Five of the babies were wrapped in transparent bags and one was enclosed in a plastic case, police said.

Copyright © 2002, Canoe, a division of Netgraphe Inc.