TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A New Taipei City man has recently been indicted on forgery and fraud charges for concealing his mother's death by storing her body in a refrigerator for five years in order to continue collecting social welfare benefits in her name.
The case came to light after the New Taipei Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention Center in August last year received reports about a teenage female student who had bruises on her body and was likely a domestic abuse victim, CNA reported.
The center, along with police, visited the student, who told them that she had been physically abused by her father since she was in fourth grade. She also said that her grandmother had passed away when she was in fourth grade, but revealed that “Grandma is hiding in the refrigerator.”
Police later visited the teen's home and found the elderly person's body in the refrigerator, and the Taipei Social Welfare Department placed the girl in institutional care, per CNA.
According to Shilin District Prosecutors Office’s indictment, the 87-year-old mother, surnamed Chiang (蔣), of the 67-year-old man, surnamed Pan (班), died of natural causes in October 2017, Liberty Times reported. However, the son hid his mother’s body in a refrigerator and did not register her death so that he could continue to collect his mother’s social benefits, which included the monthly low-income and house rental subsidies.
Pan also forged his mother’s signature on the house rental lease in order to continue to collect the house rental subsidies. According to prosecutors’ investigation, the man collected a total of NT$751,808 (US$24,611) in social benefits in his mother’s name over a nearly five-year period from November 2017 to August 2022.
