TOKYO - Police were investigating a possible cult connection Monday after they discovered what appeared to be a woman's mummified body in a house in southwestern Japan.
Police found the body Sunday in a small room in a house in the city of Fukuoka after a man who lived there with his two elderly parents reported noticing a "bad odor," police spokesman Akinori Chihora said.
They are investigating the possibility that someone tried to preserve the body as part of a religious rite, Chihora said.
The mother of the man who called the police, Katsunobu Uchino, was involved with a new religious group, and the body was thought to be that of an acquaintance who had earlier lived with the family, the Asahi newspaper reported, without elaborating.
An autopsy determined that the woman had been dead for about six months, Chihora said. The cause of death was still unknown, but police suspect illness.
If a cult connection is established, it would not be the first case in which a new Japanese religious group has kept a mummified body for ceremonial purposes.
The leader of a cult called Life Space was arrested in 2000 along with nine followers after they were found holding a vigil over the mummified corpse in an airport hotel room.
Group leader Koji Takahashi claimed he had supernatural powers that enabled him to cure people's illnesses by pounding on their heads.