In the 1980s in Japan, Junko Furuta was just 17 years old when four teenage guys beat, raped, and killed her.
In the eyes of Shinji Minato’s parents, Junko Furuta was their son’s significant other. The charming young girl frequented their son’s company so frequently that it appeared as though she resided there.
They continued to believe everything was OK even after they started to worry that her constant presence wasn’t always consenting. After all, they worried about their son’s propensity for violence and his friend’s ties to the Yakuza, a significant Japanese organized criminal group.
Junko Furuta Case: The Brutal Murder Story of a Girl
You may be devastated by this true story. This horrifying tale is about Junko Furuta, a 17-year-old Japanese girl who was abducted, raped, and subjected to gruesome torture for 44 days before being brutally murdered by four boys in 1988. Her murder became known as the “concrete-encased high school girl murder case” after the discovery of her remains within a concrete drum.
However, Junko Furuta was their hostage, their sex slave, and their punching bag for 44 nonstop days in the eyes of Shinji Minato and his friends Hiroshi Miyano, J. Ogura, and Yasushi Watanabe. Tragically, she would be killed by them on the last day of her horrible torture.
The Abduction Of Junko Furuta
1971 saw the birth of Junko Furuta in Misato, Saitama, Japan. And before being abducted at the age of 17, she was a typical girl. At Yashio-Minami High School, Furuta was renowned for being attractive, intelligent, and academically successful. She didn’t drink, smoke, or take drugs, but despite her reputation as a “nice girl,” she was fairly popular at school and seemed to have a promising future.
But in November 1988, everything was different.
At the time, Hiroshi Miyano, her eventual kidnapper, was well-known as the school bully and frequently boasted about his connections to the Yakuza. Some of their classmates claimed that Miyano had formed a slight infatuation with Furuta and was furious when she rejected him. Given that he had told them about his Yakuza friends, nobody had ever tried to reject him.
A few days later, Miyano and Minato were prowling a park in Misato, preying on defenseless ladies. Miyano and Minato were excellent at detecting possible victims because they were seasoned gang rapists.
The boys saw Junko Furuta riding her bicycle around 8:30 p.m. She was traveling home from work at the time. Miyano intervened by feigning to be a concerned bystander when Minato kicked Furuta off her bike to divert attention. He assisted her in standing up and then asked if she wanted an escort home, which Furuta unknowingly agreed to. She never again ran into her loved ones.
Inside Junko Furuta’s 44 Days Of Hell
Furuta was taken to an abandoned warehouse by Miyano, who then raped her while threatening to kill her and her family if she made a sound. He also informed her of his Yakuza ties. Then he led her to a park, where Watanabe, Minato, and Ogura were waiting. She was raped there by the other boys as well. They later sneaked her into a house belonging to Minato’s relatives.
Although Furuta’s parents reported their daughter missing to the police, the lads made sure they wouldn’t hunt for her, which caused her to call her parents and claim that she had fled and was staying with a friend. Furuta was compelled to act as Minato’s girlfriend while his parents were there, despite the fact that they finally became aware that something was off.
Minato’s parents were sadly kept in the dark for 44 days about the terrifying real-life horror story that was taking place in their own home by the prospect of the Yakuza coming for them.
Over the course of those 44 days, Miyano and his buddies, as well as other adolescents and men who the four captives knew, raped Junko Furuta more than 400 times. Her internal anatomy was destroyed throughout the torture by the insertion of iron bars, scissors, skewers, explosives, and even a lighted lightbulb into her anus and vagina, rendering her unable to urinate or defecate normally.
The lads forced her to perform additional abhorrent acts, including as eating live cockroaches, masturbating in front of them, and drinking her own pee, while they weren’t raping her. Her body, which was still very much alive at that point, was thrashed with golf clubs, bamboo sticks, and iron rods while being suspended from the ceiling. Hot wax, cigarettes, and lighters were used to burn her genitalia and eyelids.
The Murder Of Junko Furuta
The fact that Junko Furuta’s excruciating torture and eventual death could have been stopped is one of the most sad aspects of it all. The police were informed of Furuta’s situation twice, but both times they did nothing to help.
The first time, a youngster who had been invited by Miyano to the Minato residence returned home after encountering Furuta and informed his brother of the events. After making that decision, the sibling told his parents, who subsequently called the police. When the police arrived at the Minato home, the family gave them the assurance that there was no girl there. The cops never went back to the house, so the response was obviously adequate for them.
The second time, Furuta herself was the one who dialed 911, but the boys found her before she could say anything. Miyano told the police that the initial call had been a mistake when they returned the call.
The police abandoned all further investigation. When Furuta called the police, doused her legs in lighter fluid, and set herself on fire, the boys punished her.
The captors of Junko Furuta finally killed her on January 4, 1989. She apparently defeated the guys at a game of mahjong, which infuriated the boys, who then tortured her to death. They placed her body in a 55-gallon drum, loaded it with concrete, and dropped it on a cement truck out of fear of being accused of murder. They also believed for a long time that they would never be discovered.
The Aftermath Of A Heinous Crime
Two weeks later, Miyano and Ogura were taken into custody by the police on separate gang-rape charges. An ongoing murder inquiry was brought up by the police during Miyano’s interrogation. Miyano told the police where they could discover Junko Furuta’s body because he thought the authorities were talking about the murder of Furuta and that Ogura must have admitted to the deed.
Ultimately, it came out that the case the police had been referring to had nothing to do with Furuta, and Miyano had unintentionally turned himself in for her slaying. All four boys were in arrest in a matter of days.
The lads were given startlingly short sentences despite the overwhelming amount of evidence against them and the gruesome torture they inflicted on Junko Furuta.
Shinji Minato was given a sentence of five to nine years, Hiroshi Miyano was given a sentence of twenty years, J Ogura was given a sentence of five to ten years, and Yasushi Watanabe was given a sentence of five to seven years.
Although it is commonly thought that their ties to the Yakuza also played a role, their youth at the time of Junko Furuta’s murder was a factor in why they received low sentences. The lads would have likely received the death penalty if the case had been heard somewhere else or if they had been a few years older.
Instead, all four of Furuta’s murderers were ultimately let out of jail. Watanabe is thought to be the only one who hasn’t committed another crime since his release. Many people in Japan still believe that justice has not been done in the Furuta case. Tragically, it appears unlikely that will ever occur.
