On July 17th, a court sentenced a criminal, surnamed Wu, to 10 months in prison. While the crime wasn’t murder, it was equally repugnant– he kept the body of his late mother in a freezer for 7 months, just so that he could continue living off of her pension paycheck.

When Wu’s mother fell ill in February of 2019, Wu, who was 43 and had been unemployed since 2016 and living with his mother, hired a careworker to look after her. However, Wu’s mother’s condition continued to deteriorate and she entered a coma in early April. Shortly after that, she died with her son playing video games in the room next door on April 8th. After confirming the death of his mother, Wu dismissed the care worker.

When asked about the day of his mother’s death, Wu recalled,“After the care worker left, I felt kind of sad in front of my mother’s body, thinking that I will no longer be in the shelter of my mother.” Being used to taking his mother for granted, he immediately thought of his mother’s 4000-yuan-per-month pension.

“If no one knew that my mother was dead, I could keep getting my mother’s pension.”

For his mother’s body not to decay and smell, he bought a large freezer to contain her corpse. He also never left his home and refused to answer telephone calls or the door for almost 7 months in case anyone wanted to visit his mother.

On November 2nd, after not having seen Wu’s mother for a long time, the neighborhood committee contacted the local police and asked them to help check on Wu’s household. After having a locksmith pick the door lock, the committee was surprised to find that Wu was at home. Wu explained that his mother was in Wuxi visiting relatives. Sensing that Wu was lying the committee became more alarmed after they spotted the unusually large freezer. When approaching the freezer and asking what was inside, Wu firmly refused to answer. The police opened the freezer nonetheless and apprehended Wu on the spot.

The trial against Wu started in June of 2020. Given his honesty after apprehension, he was ultimately sentenced to 10 months in prison for fraudulently receiving 24 thousand yuan of pension after his mother’s death.