Woman Who Tried To Leave Country Using Dead Mother's Passport Arrested For Corpse Abandonment

A Japanese woman who tried to leave her country using her dead mother's passport was arrested on suspicion of corpse abandonment in Tochigi Prefecture, Tokyo, Japan on Thursday, March 24.

On Thursday, Shiho Hashimoto was taken into custody after the dead body of her 54-year-old mother Keiko Hashimoto was found on the balcony of her apartment in Kaminokawa, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

Following the gruesome discovery, Hashimoto, who shared the flat with her mother, was arrested on suspicion of corpse abandonment. An autopsy subsequently revealed that the woman had died from loss of blood due to several cuts on her head, Japan Today reported.

Following her arrest, the officers questioned Hashimoto about her involvement in the matriarch's death.

This is not the first time Hashimoto has been taken into custody. Hashimoto was previously arrested in February for violating Japan's Passport laws. In late February, immigration officials in the U.K. discovered that she was attempting to enter the country using her mother’s passport. She was subsequently detained and sent back to Japan.

The police are still trying to determine how Hashimoto managed to pass through the security checkpoint at Narita Airport and depart for England with her mother's fake passport.

In a similar but unrelated incident, a Kansas man identified as Raymond McManness, 54, of Olathe, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he reportedly abandoned his severely underfed mother Sharon McManness, 75, who suffered from dementia to die alone in her home in 2019, Latin Times reported.

In January 2019, McManness reportedly called police to their house on the 300 block of South Cardinal Drive after he found his mother unresponsive and not breathing. When the police responded to the home, they found his mother severely malnourished and her residence in major disarray.

There were no medications, no clean clothing, no working telephones, and barely any food left in the house. The floors of the house were also covered in dog feces and urine. Soiled clothes that appeared to have been cut off the victim were found in a trash can.

McManness reportedly told the police initially that he used to check on his mother twice a day. He later admitted that he stopped taking his mother to the doctor when her physical and mental health declined.

The son was initially charged with first-degree murder. However, the charge was later lowered as part of a plea agreement.