A man is in police custody for allegedly preserving his mother’s body for over a year so that he could continue receiving her pension and welfare benefits.
According to reports, the 66-year old man from  Tyrol in West Austria told police that his 89-year-old mother died at home in mid-2020. Official say that the mother is believed to have had dementia.
The suspect is said to have stored his mother’s body in ice packs to prevent odor and used bandages to soak up fluids.
“Ultimately, the corpse was then mummified,” Helmuth Gufler, an officer from the Tyrol social security fraud department said.
An autopsy conducted on the woman’ body revealed that there was no foul play in her death.
The suspect’s secret was uncovered when a new postman asked to meet the beneficiary of the pension and welfare benefits.
The suspect refused to let him see her which caused the postman to alert the authorities after which the body was discovered in the basement.
According to the police, the suspect has been accused of keeping a dead body and fraud. It is claimed that he was able to collect about $59,150 from his mother’s benefits.
Gufler said that the suspect had no other income, and that his mother’s monthly benefits payments would have been cut off if he had reported her death.
Such a case was witnessed in 2018 where an Indian man was discovered to have kept his mother’s body for three years so that they would continue receiving her pension.
The man is said to have stored his mother after her death on a freezer meant for storing food.
The mother had worked for the government and died in April 2015 while at a nursing home. The police detained the man together with his father who lived in the same house where the body is said to have been preserved.
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