KYODO NEWS - Sep 25, 2018 - 14:51 | All, Lifestyle, Japan

Tokyo police arrested a 49-year-old woman on Tuesday after she admitted abandoning the body of her stillborn baby in a coin locker and leaving it there for several years.

Police officers found on Monday afternoon the decaying body of an infant wrapped in a plastic bag in a baggage locker near JR Uguisudani Station in Tokyo's Taito Ward, they said. After turning herself in, the woman was arrested for abandoning a body.

Police became aware of the situation when Emiri Suzaki entered a police station in neighboring Arakawa Ward on Monday morning and informed them she had abandoned the stillborn baby's body after giving birth to it four or five years ago.

"I panicked after I did not give birth to a living child and kept the body as I could not dispose of it," Suzaki was quoted by police as saying.

She told investigators she had been paying to keep the remains locked away and moved it between boxes in the same bank of lockers around Sept. 13, they said.

While the statute of limitations for the abandonment of a body is three years, the police arrested her because they deemed Suzaki's decision to move the remains as constituting a second disposal.

Suzaki said she decided to turn herself in after she was kicked out of the home where she was staying. She had left the locker key behind and thought someone could discover the body.

The police believe the body was abandoned shortly after the baby was born and are investigating the cause of death.

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