An unemployed Italian man reportedly dressed up as his deceased mother in Mrs. Doubtfire fashion so that he could collect her pension.
The unnamed 56-year-old man started dressing up as his mother after she died three years ago at their family home, according to The Telegraph.
Following his mother’s death, the man wrapped her body in a bed sheet, stuffed it into a sleeping bag, and then let the body slowly mummify as time passed.
Meanwhile, he began basically living off his mother’s money.
“With his mother’s pension and a property portfolio of three houses, the son was able to pocket roughly $61,000 annually,” the New York Post notes.
The plan worked up until it was time to renew his mom’s identity card, at which time he cut his hair, applied foundation/lipstick, put on a pearl necklace and clip earrings, and then set off for a government office.
MRS DOUBTFIRE CASE: An Italian man has been caught dressing as his dead mother to keep claiming her pension, in what has become known as a the “Mrs Doubtfire” case. He allegedly hid her body at home for three years, wrapped in sheets and a sleeping bag. Went to renew her ID in… pic.twitter.com/Mq9mtt5fAP
— Rob Kiteley (@TheRobKiteley) November 24, 2025
“Arriving at [a] government agency earlier this month, he presented himself as his mother,” The Telegraph notes, adding that the “deception” worked until an employee got suspicious and alerted the authorities.
When the authorities compared photos of the man in a dress to photos of his mother, they quickly realized what was happening.
“He came into the council offices wearing a long skirt, he was wearing lipstick and nail varnish, a necklace and old-style earrings,” town mayor Francesco Aporti reportedly said.
“But up close, his neck was too thick, and his wrinkles were strange; the skin on his hands did not seem to be that of an 85-year-old woman. His voice was feminine, but every so often it dipped and sounded masculine. But I might not have noticed these strange features had they not been pointed out,” the mayor added.
The authorities then demanded to inspect his home, and surprisingly enough, the man consented.
“He agreed to that,” Mayor Aporti said. “They searched the house and found a mummified body. She probably died of natural causes, but that will be established by the postmortem. It is a very strange story and very, very sad.”
When they searched his home, they found his mummified mother hidden in a laundry room.
“The corpse was taken to the mortuary of a local hospital for a postmortem to be conducted,” The Telegraph reported. “The man is being investigated for illegally concealing a body and benefit fraud.”
Cases like this appear from time to time.
In 2021, an Austrian man was found to have been hiding his 89-year-old’s dementia-riddled mother’s mummified corpse in his basement so he could continue receiving her pension payments.
A man kept the mummified corpse of his mother in a basement for over a year while continuing to receive her pension payments, Austrian police say.
The 89-year-old woman, who reportedly had dementia, is thought to have died of natural causes in June last year.— One Black Sheep (@UnaOvisNigra) September 10, 2021
“The 89-year-old woman is thought to have died in June 2020, police said, but the man kept her body in order to continue receiving her pension and care allowance,” CNN reported at the time.
“Police said the man collected around €50,000 ($59,000) during the time he kept his mother’s body in the basement,” the report continued.
To mummify the body, he reportedly used cat litter.
“He covered his mother with cat litter, and finally the corpse was mummified,” Helmut Gufler, head of the police’s social security fraud unit, told a local interviewer.
Much more recently, an elderly Georgia couple — Mary Ann Arceneaux, 87, and Ernest Arceneaux, 89 — was arrested in January for pocketing over $1 million from the woman’s dead mother’s pension payments for over a decade.
“The mother died in June 2010, but authorities allege the Arceneaux couple never told the California State Teachers’ Retirement System of her mother’s death, then doctored documents to give the appearance she was still alive,” local station WSB reported at the time.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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