The Junko Furuta Case: Japan’s Most Disturbing Tragedy of Torture and Injustice

On 25th November 1988 in Japan, 17-year-old Junko Furuta was kidnapped. She was brutally gang-raped and tortured for 40 days and then murdered on 4th January 1989.
 
The monsters who did this were Hiroshi Miyano, Shinji Minato, Jo Ogura, and Yasushi Watanabe, who were all aged between 16 and 18 years old.
 
Hiroshi and Shinji, despite being teenagers, were already serial rapists. On 25th November 1988, they were out looking for a victim and spotted Junko who was returning home from her part-time job.
 
All of them went to the same high school. Previously, Hiroshi had confessed his feelings to Junko and she had rejected him politely.
 
That night, he decided that their victim would be Junko as a way to take revenge for rejecting him. Hiroshi told Shinji to run away after kicking her off her bicycle and then he would swoop in to help her. Shinji did as he was told.
 
As planned, Hiroshi then went up to her and helped her to her feet. He offered to walk her home and she accepted, not knowing what she was getting herself into.
 
She got off her bicycle, and they started walking and talking. After some time, Hiroshi stopped following her directions and tried to take her into an abandoned warehouse that allegedly had ties with the Yakuza.

The Yakuza are Japanese organized crime syndicates, also known as “gokudō” or “bōryokudan”, and are often referred to as gangsters, engaging in a wide range of criminal and non-criminal activities.

Initially, Hiroshi said he needed to pick something up real quick from inside the warehouse and asked Junko to follow him inside. It started to dawn on her that things were not looking great and that was when he revealed to her that he had Yakuza connections.
 
He threatened her that if she didn’t obey him, the Yakuza were going to find and kill her entire family. Being so young and scared, she obeyed. He brought her into the warehouse and raped her.
 
After that, he took her to a hotel and raped her again. He then called Shinji’s house to brag about what he had done. Jo was at Shinji’s place as well and he begged Hiroshi not to let Junko go because he wanted to rape her too.
 
So Hiroshi brought Junko to a park near the hotel where he met up with Shinji, Jo, and Yasushi. They decided to hold her captive at Shinji’s house to ensure she didn’t go to the police. They threatened her again and said the Yakuza would kill her family if she went against them.
 
At that time, Shinji lived with his parents and older brother. When they brought Junko to his house, they introduced her as Shinji’s new girlfriend and she was forced to play along out of fear of her parents getting killed.

Two days after her disappearance, on 27th November 1988, Junko’s parents contacted the police. The search for Junko began and this really pissed off Hiroshi. So he forced Junko to call her parents and say something like:
 
“I hate my life and living with you guys, so I’ve run away and am staying with a friend. I’m safe, so call off the search. I don’t ever want to see you or talk to you again.”
 
Her parents were so heartbroken but they believed her. They thought the stress and pressure of performing well in school finally got to her.
 
They didn’t want to make her feel more miserable so they asked the police to close the investigation. It was a decision they would always regret.
 
The next 40 days were pure hell for Junko, at Shinji’s house. She was gang-raped repeatedly by not only Hiroshi, Shinji, Jo, and Yasushi, but also by 100 more men from the Yakuza that Hiroshi invited over.
 
I’m pretty sure Shinji’s parents were aware of what was going on but they refused to confront them or turn them in. Why? We may never know.
 
It was reported that she was raped at least 500 times in those 40 days. Unfortunately, that was just part of her torture. Here are some of the things they also did to her:

• They starved her most of the time.
• They forced her to eat live cockroaches.
• They forced her to drink a lot of water and then made her drink her urine.
• They urinated on her.
• They beat her up brutally with their bare hands and forced her to sing and dance while they did that.
• When their hands began to hurt from beating her, they used iron bars, golf clubs, and bamboo sticks instead.
• They hung her upside down from the ceiling and used her as a punching bag.
• They repeatedly dropped barbells onto her stomach. This resulted in a complete loss of bladder control.
• They inserted a lot of things into her, such as, glass bottles, iron bars, scissors, skewers, lighted fireworks, and light bulbs that exploded inside of her.
• They completely removed her left nipple using pliers.
• They pierced both her breasts with multiple sewing needles.
• They burned her using lighters and cigarettes.
• They taped candles on her eyelids and watched the hot wax slowly burn her eyes.

This was just 11 days in. At this point, she was unable to breathe through her nose because her face was so swollen. She also had insane levels of internal organ trauma.
 
Due to that, she would immediately throw up any food or water she was given. They wanted to feed her to keep her alive to torture her more, so when she couldn’t eat, it pissed them off.
 
She was severely dehydrated and would often slip in and out of consciousness. They dunked her head into cold water to wake her up and then continued to torture her.
 
Now we move on to Koichi Ihara. Remember the 100 Yakuza members that Hiroshi invited over to rape Junko? Koichi was one of them.
 
He refused to rape Junko not because he was a good person. But because she was so swollen from head to foot, with bruises all over her body, and it turned him off.
 
Koichi then informed his brother about Junko, who informed their parents, and they called the police.
 
Two police officers went to Shinji’s house. His parents answered the door and the police told them that they got a call about a girl being held captive here and tortured.
 
The parents said they knew nothing about it and called upon Shinji and his older brother so the police could ask them as well.
 
They of course denied everything. They even had the nerve to tell the police to come inside and check the house for themselves.
 
And that it seemed was good enough for the police to believe them. They thought if the girl was indeed there, they wouldn’t have invited them in to have a look. They got fired for this later on.
 
Now this was 16 days in. If only those police officers had gone in that day, maybe she could have survived.
 
A few days after that, Junko somehow had access to a phone. With all the energy she could muster, she dialled 110, which is the emergency services number in Japan.
 
They answered the call but before she could get a word out, the boys caught her. They snatched the receiver from her and hung up.
 
In some instances, emergency services would call us back if we called them and hung up without saying anything to find out if there indeed was an emergency.
 
So when they called back, Shinji answered and told them the call was made by mistake. He then decided that Junko needed to be punished for calling them.
 
They poured lighter fluid and gasoline all over her and set her on fire. She was convulsing in pain and started having seizures. I just don’t understand how none of the neighbours heard her screams.
 
They looked at her and said it was not enough because she was faking it. So they decided to insert glass bottles into her rectum and break it. They even left a few whole bottles inside her.
 
And no, this still wasn’t enough for them. So they dropped barbells on her hands to damage her fingers, so that she couldn’t ever call the police again.

As it got closer to the 40th day, Junko was completely unrecognizable. Her whole body and face were super swollen and burnt. Any slight touch made pus ooze out. Her burnt skin looked so decayed and smelled so bad.
 
Due to that, these four boys started to lose interest in raping her. So they decided to go to the park to find a new victim. They found a 19-year-old girl and gang-raped her. She would later play a crucial role in the investigation.
 
On 4th January 1989 (Day 40), the four boys were bored at home and decided to play Mahjong. It’s a game that requires a lot of skill and strategy.
 
They challenged Junko to play against them. She had burns all over her body and all her fingers were broken. Yet, she still managed to beat them at the game.
 
This made them so furious. They decided to punish her for that and beat her continuously for two hours. They then realised their hands were covered with pus from beating her.
 
So they wore plastic bags like gloves and continued beating her up. Her convulsions grew worse and this infuriated them further.
 
This led them to set her on fire which led to her death. One of the boys said that he just watched as she initially tried to put out the fire on her body, and then slowly, she stopped trying and became unresponsive.
 
This pissed them off because if the fire isn’t put out, it was going to burn the house down. They begrudgingly put out the fire and realised Junko was dead.
 
After a moment of panicking, they decided to hide her body in a giant barrel and fill it up with wet concrete. Once the concrete hardened, they loaded that barrel onto a cement truck.

Remember the 19-year-old girl they raped? She went to the police demanding justice. After some investigation, the police found some witnesses. They all said that these boys were notorious for gang-raping and were connected to the Yakuza.
 
The police brought in Jo Ogura and Yasushi Watanabe for questioning about the rape of the 19-year-old girl and there was some talk about an open murder investigation.
 
This had nothing to do with Junko at all because, remember, her parents called off the investigation to find her, and no one even knew she was dead.
 
But this talk about an open murder investigation terrified both Jo and Yasushi. They really thought it was about Junko.
 
Yasushi decided to confess about Junko, thinking that he might get a lighter sentence if he came clean. He told the police where the body was hidden.
 
The police went there expecting to find the actual victims of the open murder investigation but they found Junko. Except at that time, they didn’t know it was Junko because she was tortured beyond recognition, but was later identified from her fingerprints.

The autopsy revealed that, despite the severe damage to her uterus, Junko was pregnant.
 
Junko’s parents were devastated by the news of her death and hearing all the things that had been done to her. Her mother had to undergo intensive psychiatric treatment. Both her parents felt so guilty and were filled with regret for calling off the investigation to find her.
 
Hiroshi and Shinji were arrested after that but we would learn how corrupted Japan’s justice system is.
 
All of their identities were hidden from the public because they’re juveniles. However, a media outlet that felt these monsters don’t deserve to be anonymous uncovered their identities and published them.
 
In July 1990, all of them were found guilty for abduction, confinement, rape, assault, murder, and abandonment of a corpse. Many people think the Yakuza got involved in this case because they got very light sentences.
 
Hiroshi Miyano was sentenced to 17 years in prison. It was increased to 20 years because he had the audacity to appeal his sentence. His parents sold their family home and paid Junko’s parents 50 million yen ($350,000 at that time) as compensation.
 
He was released in 2010 and changed his last name to Yokoyama. He seemed to love boasting about what he did to Junko and how he had Yakuza connections. In 2013, he was arrested again for fraud but the charges were dropped because they didn’t have enough evidence.
 
Shinji Minato was sentenced to 5 to 6 years in prison. It then was increased to 5 to 9 years because he too had the audacity to appeal his sentence.
 
His parents and brother were not charged. This baffles me so much because they knew what was happening to Junko but did nothing to stop it or call the police.
 
Shinji was released in 1998 and he moved in with his mother. He was unemployed and lived off her money. In 2018, he was arrested again for attempted murder. He had slashed the neck of a 32-year-old man during a dispute over a parking spot. He was then sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison.
 
Yasushi Watanabe was initially sentenced 3 to 4 years in prison and then upgraded to 5 to 7 years. He was released in 1996 and lived with his mother. He is the only one among these four boys that weren’t arrested again after their release.
 
Jo Ogura served 8 years in prison and then changed his last name to Kamikasu. He was so proud of himself for what he did. He was always asking people if they saw him on the news and then would proceed to tell them what he did to Junko.
 
Jo’s father was saving money to pay restitution to Junko’s family. Jo stole all that money and spent it on luxury items so Junko’s family wouldn’t receive a penny from them.
 
Jo’s mother on the other hand had vandalized Junko’s grave and told anyone who would listen that Junko had ruined her son’s life.

Jo was arrested again in 2004 for assaulting his 27-year-old acquaintance that he thought was flirting with his girlfriend. Yes, you read that right. Jo actually had a girlfriend.
 
Jo had kidnapped his acquaintance and beat him for 4 hours while bragging about how easily he could get away with murder because he had done it before. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison for this.
 
What I don’t understand is, how 4 hours of assault got him 7 years but 40 days of torture and murder only got him 8 years. Make it make sense.
 
Both Jo and Yasushi aren’t alive anymore. Jo died in 2022. He collapsed, got his head stuck between the toilet bowl and the tank, and choked on his own vomit. Yasushi died in 2021 by succumbing to his neurodegenerative disease.
 
Hiroshi and Shinji are alive and roaming freely. I know they were juveniles when the crime was committed but they should have all been sentenced to life in prison. What sort of justice system gives such light sentences to these monsters?
 
What are your thoughts on this case and Japan’s justice system?
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This article is a summary I made of the same case in the True Crime Podcast, Rotten Mango by Stephanie Soo. She dives deep into each of the cases that she covers. Linked below is the episode of this case.

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