Murder of Junko Furuta

Junko Furuta (古田 順子 Furuta Junko) was a Japanese high-school student who
was abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered in the late 1980s. Her murder case
was named "Concrete-encased high school girl murder case" (女子高生コンク
リート詰め殺人事件Joshikōsei konkurīto-zume satsujin-jiken), due to her body
being discovered in a concrete drum. The murder was mainly perpetrated by four
teenage boys, Hiroshi Miyano, Jō Ogura, Shinji Minato, and Yasushi Watanabe.
Approximately 100 people knew about Junko Furuta's captivity, but either did
nothing about it or themselves participated in the torture and murder. Most of the
participants were friends of the teenage boys, who were low-ranking members of
the Yakuza.

Background
Junko Furuta was born in Misato, Saitama Prefecture. As a teenager, she attended
Yashio-Minami High School and worked as a part-time employee during after
school hours. She was known to be popular and good looking, which made some
of her classmates envious. However, she was looked down upon by the "gangster-
like" teenagers since she refrained from smoking, drinking alcohol and drug usage.
Hiroshi Miyano, a known school bully with connections to the Yakuza, had a crush
on Furuta but she turned him down since she was not looking for a relationship.
With the exception of Furuta, nobody dared to oppose Miyano due to his Yakuza
connections.

Crime
On 25 November 1988, Miyano and his friend Nobuharu Minato wandered around
Misato, with the intention of robbing and raping local women. At 8:30 pm, they
spotted Furuta cycling home after she finished her part-time job. Under Miyano's
orders, Minato kicked Furuta off her bicycle and immediately fled the scene.
Miyano, pretending to be an innocent bystander, approached Furuta and offered to
walk her home safely. Gaining her trust, Furuta was unaware that Miyano was
leading her to a nearby warehouse, where he revealed his Yakuza connections.
Miyano threatened to kill her as he raped her in the warehouse and once again in a
nearby hotel. From the hotel, Miyano called Minato and his other friends, Jō Ogura
and Yasushi Watanabe, and bragged to them about the rape. Ogura reportedly
asked Miyano to keep her, so that they could all have a turn. The group had a
history of gang rape, and had recently kidnapped and raped another girl, although
she was released afterward.[2]
Around 3:00 am, Miyano took Furuta to a nearby park, where Minato, Ogura, and
Watanabe were waiting.[2] They told her that they knew where she lived (from a
notebook in her backpack) and that the Yakuza would kill her family if she
attempted to escape. She was easily overpowered by the four boys, and taken to a
house in the Ayase district of Adachi, where she was gang-raped.[2] The house was
owned by Minato's parents, which soon became their regular gang hangout.[3]
On 27 November, Furuta's parents contacted the police about their daughter's
disappearance. In order to forestall the manhunt, the kidnappers coerced her into
calling her mother. She was forced to say that she had run away, but was safe and
staying with a friend.[4] She was also forced to ask her mother to stop the police
investigation into her disappearance. When Minato's parents were around, Furuta
was forced to pose as the girlfriend of one of the kidnappers.[4] They later dropped
this pretext when it became clear that the Minatos would not report them to the
police.[3] The Minatos stated that they did not intervene because they were aware
of Miyano's Yakuza connections and feared retaliation and because their own son
was increasingly violent towards them.[3] Minato's brother was also aware of the
situation, but also did nothing to prevent it.
Furuta was held captive in the Minato residence for forty days, where she was
abused, raped and tortured. They also invited and encouraged their other friends
from the Yakuza, to torment Furuta. According to their trial statements, the four of
them raped her over 400 times, beat her, starved her, hung her from the ceiling
and used her as a "punching bag", dropped barbells onto her stomach, forced her
to eat live cockroaches and drink her own urine, and forced her to masturbate in
front of them. They inserted foreign objects into her vagina and anus, including a lit
light bulb into her vagina and fireworks. They burned her vagina and clitoris with
cigarettes and lighters, and her eyelids with hot wax. They also tore off her left
nipple with pliers and pierced her breasts with sewing needles.[2][3][4]
Some of the torturers' friends have been officially identified, including Tetsuo
Nakamura, and Koichi Ihara, who were charged with rape after their DNA was
found on and in the victim's body.[2] Koichi Ihara was allegedly bullied into raping
Furuta. After he left the Minato household, he told his brother about the incident.
His brother subsequently told their parents, who contacted police.[2] Two police
officers were dispatched to the Minato house; however, they were informed that
there was no girl inside.[2] The police officers declined an invitation to look around
the house, believing the invitation was sufficient proof that there was no girl in the
Minato house.[2] Both officers faced considerable backlash from the community.
Had they done their due diligence, Furuta's ordeal would have only lasted sixteen
days and she may well have recovered from her injuries. The two officers were
fired for failing to follow procedure.[2]
At the beginning of December, Furuta attempted to call the police.[2] However, she
was discovered by Hiroshi before she could say anything. When the police phoned
back, Miyano informed them that it was a mistake.[4] As punishment, they doused
her legs and feet in lighter fluid and set them on fire. They also pushed a large
bottle into her anus, causing severe bleeding. She reportedly went into
convulsions. During their trial, they stated that they thought she was faking a
seizure, so they set her on fire again.[4] She survived these injuries and continued
to be raped and tortured. Furuta is reported to have asked her captors on multiple
occasions to "kill her and get it over with", but they refused. Instead, they forced
her to sleep outside on the balcony (it was winter at that time) and locked her in a
freezer.[4] One of the kidnappers told the court that her hands and legs were so
badly damaged that it took her over an hour to drag herself downstairs to use the
washroom.[4] Due to the severity of the torture, she eventually lost bladder and
bowel control and was beaten for soiling the carpets. She was also unable to drink
water or consume food and would vomit after each attempt.[4] She was also
severely beaten for this.
The brutality of the attacks drastically altered Furuta's appearance. Her face was
so swollen that it was difficult to make out her features. Her body was also severely
crippled, giving off a rotting smell that caused the four boys to lose sexual interest
in her. As a result, the boys kidnapped and gang-raped a 19-year-old woman who,
like Furuta, was on her way home from work.
On 4 January 1989, the four boys challenged Furuta to a game of Mahjong, which
she is said to have won.[4][2] Out of frustration, the boys beat her with an iron
barbell, kicked and punched her, and placed two short candles on her eyelids,
burning them with the hot wax.[2] They made her stand, and struck her feet with a
swinging stick. At this point, she fell onto a stereo and collapsed into a fit of
convulsions.[2] Since she was bleeding profusely, and pus was emerging from her
infected burns, the four boys covered their hands in plastic bags taped at the
wrists.[2] They continued to beat her and dropped an iron exercise ball onto her
stomach several times. They poured lighter fluid onto her thighs, arms, face, and
stomach and once again set her on fire.[2] Furuta allegedly made attempts to put
out the fire, but gradually became unresponsive.[2] The attack reportedly lasted two
hours. Furuta eventually succumbed to her wounds and died that day. [2]
Less than twenty-four hours after her death, Nobuharu Minato's brother called to
tell him that Furuta appeared to be dead. Afraid of being caught for murder, they
wrapped her body in blankets and shoved it into a travel bag. They then put her
body in a 55-gallon (208 liters) drum and filled it with wet concrete. Around 8:00
pm, they loaded and eventually disposed the drum into a cement truck in Kōtō,
Tokyo.[5]
On 23 January 1989, Hiroshi Miyano and Jō Ogura were arrested for the gang-
rape of the 19-year-old woman they had kidnapped in December. On 29 March,
two police officers came to interrogate them, as women's underwear had been
found at their addresses. During the interrogation, one of the officers led Miyano
into thinking he knew of Furuta's murder. Thinking that Jō Ogura had confessed to
the crime, Miyano told the police where to find Furuta's body. The police were
initially puzzled by the confession, as they had been talking about the murder of
another woman and her seven-year-old son that had occurred nine days prior to
Furuta's abduction. That case remains unsolved to this day.
The police found the drum containing Furuta's body the following day. She was
identified via fingerprints. On 1 April 1989 Jō Ogura was arrested for another
sexual assault, and subsequently re-arrested for murder. The arrest of Yasushi
Watanabe, Nobuharu Minato, and Minato's brother followed.

Prosecution
Despite the shocking brutality of their crime, the identities of the boys were sealed
by the court since they were all considered to be juveniles at the time of the crime.
Journalists from the Shūkan Bunshun magazine discovered their identities,
however, and published them.[4] They stated that, given the severity of the crime,
the accused did not deserve to have their right to anonymity upheld. All four boys
pled guilty to "committing bodily injury that resulted in death", rather than murder.
In July 1990, a lower court sentenced Hiroshi Miyano, the alleged leader of the
crime, to 17 years in prison.[5][2] He appealed his sentence, but Tokyo High
Court judge Ryūji Yanase sentenced him to an additional three years in prison. The
20-year sentence is the second highest sentence after life imprisonment.[5][2] He
was 18 at the time of the murder. Miyano's mother reportedly sent Furuta's parents
50 million yen (USD 425,000), after selling their family home. In 2004 he tried to
get parole, but due to an incident, it was denied. In January 2013, Miyano was re-
arrested for fraud. Due to insufficient evidence, he was released without charge on
the 31st of that month.
Nobuharu Minato, who originally received a four- to six-year sentence, was re-
sentenced to five-to-nine years by Judge Ryūji Yanase upon appeal.[5][2] He was 16
at the time of the murder. Nobuharu's parents and brother were not charged.
Furuta's parents were dismayed by the sentences received by their daughter's
killers and won a civil suit against the parents of Nobuharu Minato, in whose home
the crimes were committed. After his release, Minato moved in with his mother. He
has not worked since.
Yasushi Watanabe, who was originally sentenced to three-to-four years in prison,
received an upgraded sentence of five-to-seven years.[5][2] He was 17 at the time of
the murder. After his release, he married a Romanian woman.
For his participation in the crime, Jō Ogura served eight years in a juvenile prison
before he was released in August 1999. He was 17 at the time of the murder. After
his release, he is said to have boasted about his role in the kidnapping, rape and
torture of Furuta.[3] In July 2004, he was arrested for assaulting Takatoshi Isono, an
acquaintance he thought his girlfriend may have been involved with. Jō tracked
Isono down, beat him and shoved him into his truck. He drove him from Adachi to
his mother's bar in Misato, where he allegedly beat Isono for four hours. During
that time, Ogura repeatedly threatened to kill the man, telling him that he'd killed
before and knew how to get away with it. He was sentenced to seven years in
prison for the assault and has since been released. Ogura's mother allegedly
vandalized Furuta's grave, stating that she had ruined her son's life. [citation needed] It
has also been reported that Ogura has run through his father's savings (money
which was originally meant for Furuta's family), buying and consuming a number of
luxury goods.
The sentences were largely regarded as being far too light for the crimes
committed, all four individuals were protected by special provisions applied to
individuals 18 years old and younger.
During sentencing, the judge commented that "exceptionally grave and atrocious
violence" had been inflicted upon the victim, and that Junko Furuta had been
"murdered so brutally at the young age of 17, [that her] soul must be wandering in
torment". Hearing the details of the brutal rape and torture, a spectator in the
gallery fainted. Furuta's mother also reportedly had a mental breakdown, which
required psychiatric treatment.

Aftermath
Junko Furuta's funeral was held on 2 April 1989. One of her friends' memorial
address stated:
Jun-chan, welcome back. I have never dreamed that we would see you again in
this way. You must have been in so much pain ... so much suffering ...
The happi we all made for the school festival looked really good on you. We will
never forget you. I have heard that the headmaster has presented you with a
graduation certificate. So we graduated together – all of us. Jun-chan, there is no
more pain, no more suffering. Please rest in peace...[citation needed]
Furuta's part-time employer, whom she worked for prior to her kidnapping and
murder, presented her parents with the uniform she would need to wear as a full-
time employee. The uniform was placed in her casket. The location near where
Furuta's body was discovered has been developed since and is now Wakasu
park.[citation needed]

In popular culture
At least three Japanese-language books have been written about the incident.[6]
An exploitation film, Joshikōsei konkurīto-zume satsujin-jiken (女子高生コンクリー
ト詰め殺人事件, Concrete-Encased High School Girl Murder Case), was made
about the incident by Katsuya Matsumura in 1995. Yujin Kitagawa (later a member
of the music duo Yuzu) played the role of the principal culprit.[7][8]
Seiji Fujii wrote a novel about the case, 17-sai ("Seventeen years old"), which was
turned into a manga by Yōji Kamata. Contrary to what had really happened, the
novel shows a happy ending for the girl, who survives and her kidnappers are
sentenced to jail for many years.[citation needed] Waita Uziga (author of Mai-chan's
Daily Life) also made a controversial manga, Shin Gendai Ryōkiden, about the
case, with much more violent and crude content.[citation needed]
The song "Junko Furuta" by Indonesian musician Danilla Riyadi is a tribute to
her.[9]
Song "44 Days" by musician Mr. Kitty is about the incident. [10]