52 Lock Up: Junko Furuta

Hey guys welcome back to my next episode of 52 lock up, 52 weeks, 52 crimes.

Before we get started, I need to disclose a full warning about today’s episode. This episode discusses rape, torture to the most extreme. This is not for children! If you are a person who can not listen to these types of graphic details, please do not watch this episode. This episode may contain information traumatizing to some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised!

Today we are going to be traveling across seas to Japan in the late 1980’s!

This crime when I had heard about it hit me deeply and the processing of the criminals that committed this crime truly fascinates me to the core. The US applies restorative justice but we are more of a retributive system with sprinkled aspects of the Babylonian Hammurabi code. For those of you who may not know the Hammurabi Code, that is the famous “eye for an eye” quote. It was a collection of 282 rules, that established standards for commercial interactions and set fines and punishments to meet the requirements of justice. “Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”; but an eye for eye makes the world go blind if you ask me.

Now back to 1980’s in Japan, let’s look at the life of a sweet teenager trying to live her life. Japan was doing well economically, unemployment went down to 4% and fashion was the rise of antiestablishment punk rebellious fashions like the now famous Harajuku district. The 80’s was a fun time…for some it was other stuff. During this time the crime rate had increased in November and December particularly with young women who were robbed and assaulted . There was the Yama-Ichi war which was when a war between the yakuza gang Yamaguchi-gumi faction and the IchiwaKai faction and serial killers much like the US were being discovered.

Furuta Junko born on January 18th, 1971 and had one older brother and one younger brother; Her father’s name was Furuta Akira. She was a young 5’3” teenage girl who attended Yashio-Minami high school. She was considered to be very good looking which you can see in her photo she was very beautiful. She was not into the rebellious scene and did not smoke, drink alcohol or do drugs; she was a focused straight A teenager.

She also worked part time at a plastic molding factory after school from October 1988 so she can save up money for a graduation trip she was planning. Eventually she took a job at an electronic retailer shop where she intended to work there until she graduated. She was a well accomplished student, ambitious, goal oriented, well liked by her classmates. She was every parent’s perfect dream and had high grades with very infrequent absences; which is important to know for when she went missing. She was the nerd, the uncool girl to the rebellious crowd. One of the people who considered her to be so “uncool” was Miyano Hiroshi.

Miyano Hiroshi born on April 30th 1970 was the 16 year old very involved in the new generations of the Yakuza mafia. Miyano Hiroshi often hung around Minato Nobuharu, Ogura Jo and 17 year old Yasushi Watanabe. I found multiple sources stating that Miyano Hiroshi had a crush on Junko but she was not interested in dating; she was focused on her schooling. Her turning him down politely is what influenced the following horrible events to Junko’s crime. Rejection violence is a concerning factor but especially with females. There are societal expectations across the world for years where women are expected to respond favorably to male attention and when a woman is not interested and responds unfavorably; for those who are severely misogynistic will scoff at the idea of a women not doing as they desire. (Side note, I did find a memorial dedicated to Junko on instagram that stated the young boys didn't even know who she was when they abducted her). There are very few pages that state that they did not know her but rather were looking for women to rape and abduct

Either way this is what happened.

On November 25, 1988, Junko left her after school job riding her bike. She rode past some bushes, and a young boy named Minato Nobuharu/Shinji, popped out and kicked her off her bike. He then ran away.

Another young boy named Hiroshi ran up to Junko and helped her up. He asked Junko if it was okay if he walked her home. Most sources say that Junko knew Hiroshi, because they went to the same school. it is said that Junko thought she was in good hands and plus he had helped her off of her bike when in reality she was far from being in good hands; i have no way of clarifying if she really thought that. As they were passing by an abandoned warehouse Hiroshi’s demeanor drastically changed and he began to force Junko into the abandoned warehouse. She did not want to go but due to Hiroshi reminding her he was part of the Yakuza that if she did not comply he would kill her; which in hindsight would have saved her for what is coming up.

At the warehouse Junko was raped then brought to the hotel. While she was at the hotel Miyano decided to call his friends to proudly talk about how he had forcefully raped Junko. The friends he called are the same Minato, Yasushi and Ogura since their group had a history for kidnapping and assaulting young girls. Keep in mind this is 1988; no iPhones. Around 3 in the morning, Miyano leaves the hotel with Junko and meets up with Minato, Jo and Yasushi in a park. The trio agrees on keeping her captive in fear that if they do let her go, she might go to the cops. They empty her bag and go through her belongings to discover a notebook which had Junko’s parent’s address on it. 

The four started out claiming they were taking her home because They had learned her home address from a notebook in her backpack and told her that they knew where she lived, and that yakuza members would kill her family if she attempted to escape. The four boys took her to Minato’s house in the Ayase district of Adachi, and gang-raped her; soon became their regular gang hangout.

Junko’s parents reported her missing after her employer stated she had not been to work which was not like her. She was a studious young lady but the parents were able to report her disappearance to the police 2 days after. The boys forced Junko to call her parents to assure them that she was fine. “Otoosan, Okahsan! Daijoubu desuyo” I’m fine mom and dad, everything is great. There’s no way the parents believed it but couldn’t get information either. They made Junko tell her parents that the police should stop looking around for her. Her mother said that she sounded breathless on the phone and her mother stated in an interview that Junko told her not to worry and that she would be back home soon,

While all of this is going on Minato’s parents were increasingly scared of their son and Miyano because he was involved with gang violence and the Yakuza. They discovered Junko’s presence while visiting their son. Junko was told to pretend she was one of the boy’s girlfriend. At some point it became obvious that she was being held captive. The parents were terrified to report their son. Their fear to report anything led to Junko’s imprisonment lasting 44 days.

She was forced to be naked, raped every day by her vagina and anus. At some point the boys invited other men to the house to rape her. It is believed that more than 100 men had raped her because the boys advertised they had a 16 year old girl for them. It is estimated that she went through 500 rapes. At one point it is reported that she was raped by 12 different men in one day. It was also reported that the men who raped her also enjoyed urinating on her. In one of my resources it stated the rapes were by lower ranking Yakuza members; I have no way of confirming that. She was forced to masturbate in front of them as a show for them and their guests. She had endured severe beatings like being hit with golf clubs or bamboo sticks, burning her skin, having her head bashed in against the cement floor.

At some point the boys were passed out from drinking she still found the strength to try to call the police when she had an opportunity. Former Detective Higashino Kelechi who was in charge of the Adachi police station outside of Tokyo remember receiving a brief phone call about a woman who was begging for help but before he could get the address the phone call was cut unfortunately they stopped her. She was covered in lighter fluid and then taunted with a candle until she lost the look of fear in her eyes apparently then she was lit on fire. The way the look is described to me it makes me think of Baby in sucker punch right before she was lobotomized.

A couple of weeks (16 days in) after the call, the police were approached by 16-year-old Koichi Ihara and his older brother. Ihara said that he was bullied into raping and torturing a woman held captive at one of his classmates, Nobuharu’s basement and He named Minato’s family complicit in their son’s act. Keigo dispatched two officers to the Minato house; however, they were informed that there was no girl inside. The Minato’s even invited the officers inside to do a thorough search but the officers declined, believing that the invitation alone was sufficient proof that there was nothing untoward to be found. In their reports, however, the officers mentioned that they did a “preliminary search.” Meaning they didn’t really look; I couldn’t find the name of the officers or how they were responded to for not being thorough enough.

She had various objects being forced into her vagina and anus from a bottle, iron bar, scissors, roasting needles, grilled chicken skewers, a hot lit bulb and rubbed until it exploded inside, lit firecrackers in her anus, her left nipple was ripped off with pliers, dumbbells dropped on her stomach while tied up on the floor which would have more than likely caused neurogenic bowel which is damage to your nerves in your lower spinal regions. Nerve disease can do it but that’s not what happened here, the dumbbells would have caused spinal damage to the nerves that help control the lower part of your colon and that’s the part of the body that sends solid waste out of the body. She was unable to get herself to the bathroom. Ten days into her torture her eyes were used to put out their cigarettes.

She was not permitted to shower, went many days without food; it was just enough food to keep her alive to keep the torture going like eating live roaches & drinking her own urine or semen of the captors who had her. She was forced to take drugs. Hung from the ceiling to be used as a punching bag, placed into a freezer for several hours, eyelids were burned with hot wax and lighters, breasts were pierced with sewing needles. Her vagina and clitoris was burnt with cigarettes and lighters, fingernails ripped from the nail bed one at a time. The separation the body is supposed to have between the vagina and anus was ripped with the scissors they used on her.

Junko’s nasal cavities were so clogged up with blood that she could not breathe through her nose. Remember the dumbbell incident that i just explained and the damage that would cause. Well that spinal cord injury would get in the way the body’s normal ability to store and eliminate waste which frequently causes constipation and bowel accidents. the live roaches and whatever else they fed her or her urine she was forced to drink would enter her gastrointestinal tract (Gi Tract) and the muscles required to push the food by naturally contracting; it’s an involuntary muscle (moves automatically). Her body would have struggled to get anything into it’s system for survival and because of the pressure on her stomach; everything would have came back up.

So her internal organs began to refuse to accept food and water, so if she tried to drink, she instantly vomited. When there is excessive vomiting the body becomes severely dehydrated and I’m sure she even developed Mallory Weiss tear syndrome from all of her excessive violent vomiting and coughing. She would vomit enough that it would “soil” their carpet which would piss them off more and give them “reason” to beat her as punishment.

Now You have to acknowledge her resilience to with stand everything and still try to get to help. She had severe leg burns and severely bruised muscles that left her unable to walk after 20 days of her ordeal; that is the HALFWAY POINT! She couldn’t handle anything with her hands anymore because her bones were smashed with weights and her fingernails cracked. Since it was winter, she was also forced to sleep on a balcony, exposed to cold temperatures which considering everything that was happening to her body she should have become hypothermic and passed; but she still survived and that is the heartbreaking part because this torture goes on for 44 days. Her eardrums were damaged and her brain size was even reduced. She begged them to kill her everyday and they would not grant her that peace. After all of her resilience she was finally granted her request by pissing them off. With her body as destroyed as it was, with her brain size reduced on January 4th 1989 they challenged her to a game of Mahjong and said if she won that they would release her and fighting for her freedom. She won. She died of the additional injuries of being beat with an iron barbell, set fire to her legs, face, stomach after covering her in lighter fluid. After everything she endured, the male ego was offended that she beat them at Mahjong. Take a minute to breathe after listening to her story.

Just as a side note because the boys had lost sexual interest in her; it led them to kidnapping and assaulting another young woman who was heading home from work. This did not free Junko from her torture but I also was having trouble finding the name of the other woman.

Junko’s body was placed into a traveling bag, into a 55-gallon drum, filled with wet cement and dropped into a cement truck in Koto Tokyo. The crime of Junko was discovered after Miyano and Ogura/Kamisaku were arrested for abducting a 19 year old young lady; I’m unsure if it was the same young lady they abducted while they had Junko. However on January 23, a 19-year-old young girl came forward to the Adachi station to file a complaint of gang rape, assault and robbery against Ogura and Miyano. She told police they were juniors back at her high school, and had taken her to an Arakawa waterfront warehouse where they had sexually assaulted her and threatened to kill her and her family if she went to the police.

During the interrogation about the case they were investigating, officers implied that Ogura had told them about Miyano committing a murder. Miyano immediately folded and confessed to torturing and murdering Furuta. The confession was a surprise to the police because they were working a missing case of a woman with her son who had went missing a few days before Junko was abducted on November 16th. The police found Junko’s remains, their DNA was found in the victim’s body that proved the 4 boys assaulted her.

The trial began in Tokyo, on July 31, 1989. Much like America, Japan’s juvenile justice system, minors have the right to anonymity. The Japanese Juvenile law is largely geared towards rehabilitation and educating young criminals rather than carrying out strict punishments. but their names were revealed by the press. Hanada Kazuyoshi, was angered that Junko’s name and picture were published everywhere while the 4 boys were protected Kazuyoshi was the editor-in-chief of the magazine Shukan Bunshun, broke anonymity and released the names of the criminals in their April 20, 1989 issue, claiming “Human rights aren’t needed for brutes.” Hanada, in an interview, stated that he was well aware of the legal repercussions that would follow, as it violated juvenile laws. However, he noted that there were no penalty regulations in place to punish them.

Junko’s perpetrators were tried as adults in Tokyo’s District Criminal Court, they still received special treatment reserved for minors. Which is interesting when I think of cases like Amber Wright and her friends in my first episode who were given life as a teen.

On July 20th 1990 a year later All 4 boys plead guilty to body injury but NOT to murder. They had pled guilty to a reduce the charge to “committing bodily injury that resulted in death”, instead of the original charge of murder. While you gasp keep in mind it is also rumored of their connections to the Yakuza and why their sentences were treated with leniency at the time.

Hiroshi Miyano was 18-year-old at the time of the crime had the highest sentence for up to 17 years which was extended to 20 years later. By the way this is the maximum number of years the court can give right before life imprisonment. Hiroshi Miyano later Changed his name to Hiroshi Yokoyama. And Jo Ogura was 18 years old at the time of the crime sentenced 5 to 10 years in juvenile prison. Changed his name to Jo Kamisaku (神作譲) and Nobuharu Minato changed his surname to Shinji) was sentenced between 5 to 9 years and Yasushi Watanabe was 17-year-old at the time of the crime; was sentenced to 5 to 7 years.

Three of the boys served less than eight years due to their juvenile ages (which is what Amber Wright and her friend anticipated to happen with them), the leader has initially been sentenced to 17 years in prison, but after his appeal, Judge Yanase bumped Miyano’s sentence to 20 years instead of lowering his sentence.

After Miyano’s release Miyano was rearrested later in 2013 for fraud and later released due to insufficient evidence. Today, he is an avid kickboxer and found himself a new posse. His organized crime ties and MLM (multi-level marketing) schemes have made him very wealthy as well.

Minato was sentenced to four to six years and an additional five to nine years upon appealing the sentence. Minato's parents and brother were, however, not charged because they claimed they did not know this was happening under their roof. This sentence dismayed Junko's family, Furuta’s parents were able to win a civil case against Nobuharu Minato’s parents and close to $400,000 from Miyano’s parents. Poor Furuta’s mother suffered a mental breakdown during the trial. Minato moved in with his mother after he was released. He later got arrested in 2018 for attempted murder and assaulting a 32 year old man with a rod and knife.

Ogura also known as Kamisaku was released in 2004 after serving an eight-year sentence. He was adopted by one of his supporters. Later that year, He had allegedly renewed his contacts with the underworld. He was arrested for assaulting a 27-year-old acquaintance, Takatoshi Isono. Upset that a woman in his life might be involved with Isono, Kamisaku tracked the man down, beat him, shoved him in his trunk, drove him from Adachi to his mother’s bar in Misato, (which is Junko’s hometown), and continued to beat him. During the four-hour beating, Kamisaku allegedly threatened to kill the man, by telling him that he had killed before and knew how to get away with it. During his trial for that case Kamisaku admitted to the assault, but he denied that he’d referred to any previous murder or had threatened Isono.

Nobuharu Minato/ Shinji Minato later on in life married a Romanian, he moved out to Osaka to start his own family. Minato and his wife had a baby girl, they then relocated to Aizu city. Minato was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. He allegedly assaulted a 32-year-old male company worker with a metal baton on August 19, 2018. He also allegedly slashed the victim’s throat with a knife. Minato was convicted.

Yasushi Watanabe is the only one that there is little to know about. He’s either been very quiet, went straight, or left. I have no clue he is literally the only one that there is little to know about. There are no records that he has returned to prison.

On April 2, 1989, one day after the perpetrator’s arrest, was Junko Furuta’s funeral. Her future employer gave her parents a uniform in a touching gesture that they could place in her casket. The principal of her high school provided her with a diploma.

Junko’s story inspired several movies and a manga illustrated by Youji Kamata; & the most noteworthy film is the Joshi kosei konku riito-dume satsujin-jiken “Concrete-Encased High School Girl Murder Case“, that was released in 1995. The movie was directed by Matsumura Katsuya and starred Kitagawa Yujin, a band Yuzu as the main culprit; which is a Japanese citrus. I also found a nice poem posted on allpoetry.com by RM Allen dedicated to her (see references in video description) I don’t know if i can read their work on my video but feel free to look it up.

References

https://www.tokyoreporter.com/crime/junko-furuta-killer-again-on-trial-chaos-in-the-courtroom/

https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/true-crime/furuta/

https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/true-crime/junko-furuta-killers/

https://japaninsides.com/44-days-of-hell-the-story-of-junko-furuta/

https://www.thetealmango.com/featured/junko-furuta-case/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451781/characters/nm1030557

https://peoplepill.com/people/miyano-hiroshi

https://ng.opera.news/ng/en/crime/1f3dd6c7fccd126a5c253204bb872a2a

https://allthatsinteresting.com/junko-furuta

https://daydaynews.cc/en/international/in-1988-a-beautiful-japanese-high-school-student.html

https://www.quora.com/What-do-psychopaths-think-of-the-events-that-occurred-to-Junko-Furuta

https://shopping-feedback.today/criminal/the-bloody-truth-part-nine-3egg0au1%3C/p%3E%3Cstyle data-emotion-css="14azzlx-P">.css-14azzlx-P{font-family:Droid Serif,Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:1.1875rem;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.01em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.01em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.01em;letter-spacing:0.01em;line-height:1.6;color:#1A1A1A;margin-top:32px;}

https://www.ranker.com/list/junko-furuta-facts/stefanie-hammond

https://kileystruecrime.squarespace.com/kileystruecrimeaddict-blog/the-murder-of-junko-furuta

https://encompass.eku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1599&context=etd

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/05/27/yesallwomen-a-short-fuse-between-rejection-and-violence/

https://mysteriesrunsolved.com/2020/05/junko-furuta.html

https://www.audible.com/pd/40-Days-of-Hell-The-Torturous-Murder-of-Junko-Furuta-Podcast/B09JHGH9MJ

https://vk.com/wall238714588_224

https://gh.opera.news/gh/en/crime/0d9f2713fa383af006ff35ccb0740b68

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta

https://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/asia/junko-furuta-historia-de-la-adolescente-que-fue-asesinada-por-100-personas-643068

https://newsmatomedia.com/furuta-junko

https://xn--u9j5h1btf1ez99qnszei5c8ws.com/furuta-junko/

https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q13251017088

https://allpoetry.com/Poem/13181312-%E5%8F%A4%E7%94%B0-%E9%A0%86%E5%AD%90---Furuta-Junko-by-R.M.Allen?page=1 (This is a poem i found written for her)

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/schoolgirls-40-day-torture-tattoo-24843733

https://japantoday.com/category/crime/ladies-the-law-the-murder-that-resulted-in-japan%E2%80%99s-anti-stalking-act

https://stanfordartsreview.com/2021/10/28/harrowing-murder-of-junko-furuta-explained-life-and-tragic-death/

https://positivenegativeimpact.com/junko-furuta

https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/junko-furuta-murdered-after-44-days-of-rape-and-torture-c01e2cf715fe

https://www.wattpad.com/743004959-real-unsolved-mysteries-junko-furta

https://shopping-feedback.today/criminal/furuta-junko-the-concrete-girl%3C/p%3E%3Cstyle data-emotion-css="14azzlx-P">.css-14azzlx-P{font-family:Droid Serif,Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:1.1875rem;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.01em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.01em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.01em;letter-spacing:0.01em;line-height:1.6;color:#1A1A1A;margin-top:32px;}

https://www.newshoundindia.foundation/blog-details.asp?id=394

http://www.insidemystery.com/true-crime/remembering-junko-furuta-on-her-50th-birthday

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-10-03-fi-45978-story.html