Austrian man hid mother’s body in cellar to draw pension: Police

The 66-year-old man mummified the body and kept it in the cellar for more than a year to receive her social welfare benefits, police say.

A man has admitted to bandaging and refrigerating the corpse of his dead mother to conceal her death to the Austrian authorities and continue receiving her benefits. Local police said on Thursday they had discovered the body of the 89-year-old in a home located near Innsbruck, in Austria’s Tyrol region. The woman, who is believed to have died in June last year of natural causes, was kept in a cellar by her 66-year-old son. The man has since pocketed a total of 50,000 euros ($59,000) in social welfare on her behalf.