Woman Confined by Parents Found Frozen to Death

A couple in Japan has been arrested after their daughter froze to death inside a room she had been confined in for years.

Yasutaka Kakimoto, 55, and Yukari Kakimoto, 53, were arrested Saturday after reporting the death of their 33-year-old daughter, the New York Post reports. According to authorities, Airi Kakimoto’s body was found in a state of extreme malnutrition, weighing just 42 bounds, and it is believed that she froze to death in the 32-square-foot room her parents locked her in.

The couple confessed that they had only fed their daughter once a day and said that they kept Airi Kakimoto confined to the tiny room for about 15 years, claiming that she suffered from a mental illness and started to grow violent when she was 16.

The small room was allegedly added to the Kakimoto’s house once their daughter became violent. It was fitted with a double door that could only be unlocked from the outside, a camera, and a makeshift toilet and tube to a water tank outside. Outside of the single-story home, which was surrounded by a 6 ½-foot-high fence, 10 surveillance cameras had been installed.

The Kakimotos told police that their daughter had died on Dec. 18, but they had waited to report her death until Dec. 23 because “we wanted to be together with our daughter.”

They were both arrested on suspicion of illegally disposing of a body.