On June 1st, the skeletal remains of a man were found in an apartment in the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo.
This is itself is unpleasant, but perhaps more disturbing is the fact that police suspect they are the remains of someone who died alone there 20 years ago. As beside the body was a newspaper dated 1984, leading investigators to believe that the man had been reading it just before he died.
It turns out that the dead man used to work for a Tokyo-based construction company, and the apartment his body was found in belonged to the firm. It’s thought that the man, who was 57 at the time, began using the room without the company’s permission. And judging by what happened there, without its knowledge too.
What the company did when the man suddenly stopped showing up for work wasn’t reported, but what his family did paints a very lonely picture. Basically they did nothing. His wife, children, and other relatives never asked the police to search for him…
Resulting in this very sad story 20 years down the line.