The man had preserved his wife’s body in a freezer in order to collect her pension.

New Delhi: A shocking incident has emerged from Sweden, where a 57-year-old Norwegian man preserved his wife’s body in a freezer for almost five years to continue collecting her pension. The man was arrested and sentenced to 3.5 years in prison by a Swedish court on Monday, with charges of fraud and falsifying records, as reported by Fox News.

The accused’s lawyer told the newspaper Nya Wermlands-Tidningen, “They didn’t want to be buried at a public cemetery but on the farm, actually. So he put her in the freezer to later bury her outside, and then it fell by the wayside.”

The 57-year-old accused allegedly told his friends and family that his 60-year-old wife, who died from cancer in 2018, was still alive. According to an English-language Norwegian news site, the deceased woman’s family reported her missing after losing contact with her, as the accused always told them that she was unavailable or sleeping, eventually informing them that she didn’t want to speak with them.

Cops Recovered Woman’s Body

Police Found the Woman’s Body in March this year following a tipoff. The accused confessed that he hid her death and her body. He told the police that he placed his wife’s body in a freezer after her passing. Notably, the couple lived in Arjang, which is just 340 km west of Sweden’s capital, Stockholm.

The man told investigators that he put his wife in a freezer after discovering her lifeless in their home. The couple lived in Arjang, about 340 kilometers west of Sweden’s capital, Stockholm.

Man Used The Same Freezer To Store Food

As per local media reports, the accused had stored the body in the same freezer that he also used to store food. He continued to claim the woman’s pension and tax rebates, which amounted to more than 1.2 million Norwegian kroner ($116,000).

Prosecutor Linda Karlsson, in a statement, said, “The man also used the freezer for other purposes, which I argue means that the deceased person’s sanctity of the grave was violated every time the man opened and closed the freezer, which is an aggravating circumstance.”

The man has been convicted on charges of gross breach of civil liberties, gross fraud, mutilating a corpse, and falsification of documents, among others.