Murder of Junko Furuta - Wikipedia
On 25 November 1988, Miyano and Minato wandered around Misato with the intention of robbing and raping local women.
[8] At 8:30 p.m., they spotted Furuta riding her bike home after she had finished a shift at her job. Under Miyano's orders, Minato kicked Furuta off her bike and fled the scene.
[8] Miyano, under the pretense of witnessing the attack by coincidence, approached Furuta and offered to walk her home safely.
[8] Furuta, accepting this offer, was unaware that Miyano was leading her to a nearby warehouse, where he revealed his yakuza connections. He raped her in the warehouse and again in a nearby hotel, threatening to kill her. 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 in captivity in order to allow numerous people to sexually assault her. The group had a history of
gang rape and had recently kidnapped and raped another girl, whom they released afterward.
[8]
Around 3:00 a.m., Miyano took Furuta to a nearby park, where Minato, Ogura, and Watanabe were waiting.
[8] 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 overpowered her, took her to a house in the Ayase district of
Adachi, and gang-raped her.
[8] The house, which was owned by Minato's parents, soon became their regular gang hangout.
[10]
On 27 November, Furuta's parents contacted the police about her disappearance. To discourage further investigation, the kidnappers forced her to call her mother and say she had run away, but was safe and staying with some friends. They also forced Furuta to stop the police investigation. When Minato's parents were present, Furuta was forced to act as his girlfriend.
[11] They dropped this pretense when it became clear that Minato's parents would not report them to the police.
[10] 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 toward them.
[10]
The group held Furuta captive in the Minato residence for 40 days, where they repeatedly beat, raped, and tortured her.
[8] According to their statements, the four shaved her pubic hair, forced her to dance to music while naked and masturbate in front of them, and left her on the balcony in the middle of the night with little clothing. They inserted objects into her vagina and anus, including a lit match, a metal rod, and a bottle, and force-fed her with large amounts of alcohol, milk and water. She was also forced to smoke multiple cigarettes at once and inhale
paint thinner. In one incident, Miyano repeatedly burned Furuta's legs and arms with lighter fluid. By the end of December, Furuta was severely malnourished after being fed only small amounts of food and eventually only milk.
[8] Due to her severe injuries and infected burns, she became unable to go to the downstairs toilet, and became confined to the floor of Minato's room in a state of extreme weakness.
[8]
Furuta's appearance was drastically altered from the brutality of the attacks. 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.[
citation needed]
On 4 January 1989, after losing a game of mahjong against another person the night before, Miyano decided to vent his anger towards Furuta.
[12] In their anger, they poured lighter fluid onto her thighs, arms, face, and stomach and set her on fire once again.
[8] Furuta allegedly made attempts to put out the fire, but gradually became unresponsive.
[8] They continued to punch her, ignited a candle and dripped hot wax on her face, placed two short candles on her eyelids, and forced her to drink her own urine. After she was kicked, she fell onto a stereo unit and collapsed into a fit of convulsions.
[8] Since she was bleeding profusely, and
pus was emerging from her infected burns, the four boys covered their hands in plastic bags.
[8] They continued to beat her and dropped an iron exercise ball onto her stomach several times. The attack reportedly lasted two hours. Furuta eventually succumbed to her wounds and died.
[8]
Less than 24 hours after her death, Minato's brother called to tell him that Furuta appeared to be dead. Afraid of being penalized for murder, the group wrapped her body in blankets and shoved her into a travel bag. They then put her body in a 55-gallon (208 liter) drum and filled it with wet concrete. Around 8:00 p.m., they loaded it and eventually disposed the drum into a cement truck in
Kōtō, Tokyo.
[13]
On 23 January 1989, Miyano and Ogura were arrested for the gang-rape of the 19-year-old girl whom 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, Miyano believed that one of the officers was aware of his culpability in Furuta's murder. Thinking that Jō Ogura had confessed to the crimes against Furuta, Miyano told the police where to find Furuta's body. The police were initially puzzled by the confession, as they had been referring to the murder of a different woman and her seven-year-old son that had occurred nine days prior to Furuta's abduction, a case which remains unsolved.
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 a separate sexual assault, and subsequently re-arrested for Furuta's murder. The arrest of Watanabe, Minato, and Minato's brother followed. Several other accomplices who participated in Furuta's abuse were officially identified, including Tetsuo Nakamura and Koichi Ihara, who were charged with rape after their DNA was found on and inside the victim's body.
[8]
