Background
Junko Furuta entered the world on 18 January 1971 and was raised in Misato, Saitama Prefecture, alongside her parents, an older brother, and a younger brother. At 17, she was in her final year at Yashio-Minami High School and had taken a part-time position at a plastic molding factory starting in October 1988, aiming to save money for a graduation trip she had planned. She had also lined up a job at an electronics store, intending to start there after finishing school. Furuta was popular with both peers and teachers, consistently earning high marks and rarely missing class. Her friends said she nurtured dreams of becoming an idol singer.
The tragedy was carried out by four teenage boys: Hiroshi Miyano (18), Jō Ogura (17), Shinji Minato (16), and Yasushi Watanabe (17), who in court papers were simply called "A," "B," "C," and "D." Two others, Tetsuo Nakamura and Koichi Ihara, both 16, were labeled "E" and "F." The main four had all dropped out of high school in the summer of 1988 and slid into low-level yakuza life, known as chinpira. They turned Minato's family home in Adachi, Tokyo, into their hideout. Starting in October, their crimes escalated: thefts like snatching purses and stealing cars, violent assaults, and sexual attacks. On 8 November, they kidnapped a 19-year-old woman in Adachi and gang-raped her in a hotel. Then, on 27 December, while Furuta was trapped, the same group snatched another 19-year-old woman and assaulted her in a motel.
The horrifying events surrounding Junko Furuta began on 25 November 1988, when she was abducted in Misato, Saitama, Japan. She was held captive in Adachi, Tokyo, where the torment escalated until her death on 4 January 1989. The attack involved abduction, sexual assault, torture, and ultimately murder.
The perpetrators were Hiroshi Miyano (later Hiroshi Yokoyama), Jō Ogura (later Jō Kamisaku), Shinji Minato, and Yasushi Watanabe. After the trial, all four were found guilty on every count, including abduction for the purpose of sexual assault, confinement, rape, assault, murder, and abandonment of a corpse.
The sentences varied: Miyano received 20 years in prison and served the full term; Ogura was sentenced to 5–10 years, serving 10; Minato received 5–9 years and served 9; and Watanabe was sentenced to 5–7 years, serving 7. Additionally, Miyano's parents were ordered to pay ¥50 million (roughly $350,000 at the time, about $830,000 today) in compensation to Junko's family.
On the evening of 25 November 1988, Miyano and Minato were riding their motorcycles through Misato, planning to rob and assault women they encountered. That's when they spotted Junko Furuta, making her way home from her part-time job. Following Miyano's instructions, Minato kicked Junko off her bicycle and quickly rode away. Miyano, pretending to have just stumbled upon the scene by chance, approached her and offered to escort her home. Gaining her trust little by little, he eventually led Junko to a nearby warehouse, where he threatened her, claiming he was a member of the yakuza and that he would only spare her if she obeyed his orders.
That night, Miyano forced Junko into a taxi and took her to a hotel in Adachi, where he assaulted her. Afterwards, he called Minato's house and boasted about what he had done to Ogura, who immediately warned him not to let Junko go. In the early hours of 26 November, Miyano brought her to a nearby park, where Ogura, Minato, and Watanabe were waiting. They threatened her, saying they knew where she lived and that the yakuza would harm her family if she tried to escape. Minato agreed to let them lock Junko in a room on the second floor of his house in Adachi so they could repeatedly assault her. She remained trapped there for a total of 40 days.
On 27 November, Junko's parents reached out to the police to report her missing. To throw them off, the kidnappers made Junko call her mother three times, insisting she had run away but was safe with friends. While Minato's parents were at the house, Junko was forced to pretend to be his girlfriend. The group eventually dropped the act once it became clear that Minato's parents wouldn't report them. Later, the parents said they hadn't stepped in because they were scared of their increasingly violent son.
On the night of 28 November, Miyano, the others, along with Nakamura and Ihara, sexually assaulted Junko. Afterward, Miyano shaved her pubic hair and burned the area with a match. In early December, when Junko tried to escape, the group repeatedly struck her face, and Miyano burned her ankles with a lighter. They forced her to dance naked to music, perform sexual acts in front of them, and stand on the balcony in near-total darkness with minimal clothing. They also inserted objects into her body, including a metal rod and a bottle, and made her drink excessive amounts of alcohol, milk, and water, smoke two cigarettes at once, and inhale paint thinner fumes. During one attack, after Miyano stepped on a puddle of her urine, the group beat her and burned her thighs and hands with lighter fluid. By this point, the repeated abuse became unbearable, and Junko sometimes begged them to end her life.
As December went on, the brutality against Junko only intensified. By the month's end, she was dangerously malnourished, surviving on meager rations and eventually only milk. Her injuries left her unable to walk to the downstairs toilet, confining her to the floor in a state of severe weakness. The repeated beatings had disfigured her face to the point it was almost unrecognizable, and her wounds had begun to give off a strong, foul odor.
Murder and investigation
On 4 January 1989, after losing money in a game of mahjong the night before, Miyano decided to take his anger out on Furuta. He ignited a candle and dripped hot wax on her face, placed two shortened candles on her eyelids, and forced her to drink her own urine. Furuta was lifted and kicked, fell onto a stereo unit, and began a fit of convulsions. To prevent them from being stained with blood, the group covered their hands in plastic bags before beating her with their fists and an iron exercise ball, and dropped the ball on her abdomen several times. Miyano poured lighter fluid on Furuta and set her on fire; she made weak attempts to put herself out, but soon stopped moving. The assault lasted for about two hours, after which Furuta died at 10 a.m.[5][7]
Less than a day after Furuta died, Minato's brother phoned him to report that she seemed lifeless. Fearing they would be caught, the perpetrators wrapped her body in a blanket, placed it in a large travel bag, and then sealed it inside a metal drum filled with fresh concrete. Around 8:00 p.m. on 5 January, they drove to an empty lot near a construction area on Wakasu Island in Kōtō, Tokyo, and disposed of the drum there.
In early 1989, Miyano and Ogura were arrested for kidnapping and gang raping the 19-year-old woman in December 1988. When police interrogated Miyano, he wrongly believed that Ogura had already confessed to Furuta's murder and that the police were aware of this, so he told them where to find her body. The police were initially puzzled by his confession, as they were questioning him about a different gang-rape. The drum containing Furuta's body was recovered on 29 March, and she was identified via fingerprints. Minato, Watanabe, Minato's brother, Nakamura, and Ihara were also arrested.
Trial and reaction
The identities of the defendants were sealed by the court, as they were all legally juveniles (under age 20). Journalists from the Shūkan Bunshun tabloid uncovered their identities and published them, arguing that the accused did not deserve to have their right to anonymity upheld, given the severity of the crime.[9] In July 1990, all were found guilty and sentenced by the Tokyo District Court for abduction for the purpose of sexual assault, confinement, rape, assault, murder, and abandonment of a corpse.[5] All four appealed; in July 1991, three were re-sentenced to longer terms by the Tokyo High Court.
Hiroshi Miyano was initially sentenced to 17 years in prison, later increased to 20 years—the maximum usually given in Japan short of life imprisonment, which the prosecution had requested. His parents sold their home and paid Furuta's family ¥50 million (roughly US\$350,000; \$830,000 today) as compensation, a factor presented by his defense as mitigating. A psychological evaluation during the trial noted that Miyano had a learning disability that "did not impair his brain function but delayed his emotional development." After being released in 2009, he changed his surname to Yokoyama. Reports later indicated he bragged about yakuza ties and involvement in pyramid schemes. In 2013, he was arrested for suspected bank fraud and making scam calls but was not charged.
Jō Ogura received a five-to-ten-year sentence and was released in 1999, later changing his last name to Kamisaku. He worked in IT, married a Chinese woman in 2000, moved to Chiba, divorced, and returned to his mother's home in Saitama. After his criminal past became known, he lost his job and became involved with the yakuza again. In 2004, Kamisaku assaulted a 27-year-old man he believed had interfered with a girlfriend, confining him in a car trunk and attacking him for four hours at his mother's bar in Misato. Kamisaku received a four-year prison sentence for this. Following his release in 2009, he lived on welfare in Saitama until he died in an accident on 16 July 2022 at age 51, reportedly collapsing while on psychiatric medication and choking after getting his head stuck between a toilet bowl and tank.
Shinji Minato was originally sentenced to five to six years, later adjusted to five to nine years. His parents and brother faced no charges. After his 1998 release, he lived with his mother. In 2018, then unemployed, he was arrested for attempted murder after attacking a 32-year-old man over a parking dispute in Kawaguchi, Saitama, striking him with a metal baton and slashing his neck with a knife. In 2019, Minato received a sentence of one year and six months, suspended with three years' probation.
Yasushi Watanabe initially received three to four years, later revised to five to seven years. His appeal to the Supreme Court of Japan was denied in July 1992. He was released in 1996 and lived with his mother in Tokyo. By 2005, he had developed a neurodegenerative disease but could not afford treatment, passing away in May 2021 at age 49.
Tetsuo Nakamura and Koichi Ihara, who were involved in raping Furuta but not her murder, were released from juvenile detention by 2000.
From the time the case was first reported in the media, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (the investigating body) received many calls and letters from the general public demanding that the perpetrators be severely punished, including by life imprisonment or with the death penalty. The Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office, which had sought life imprisonment for Miyano during the trial, was criticized for not seeking life sentences for the other perpetrators, nor seeking the death penalty. The Tokyo District Court also received numerous calls and letters which criticized the perceived lightness of its sentencing.
However, a majority of legal professionals surveyed by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said that the sentences were appropriate based on precedent.[18][19] In the Nagoya couple murder case [ja] of 1988, for example—a case which drew comparisons to the Furuta case—the Nagoya District Court had sentenced the main defendant, a 19-year-old male, to death, and a second defendant, a 17-year-old male, to life imprisonment in June 1989. Hiroshi Itakura, a professor of law at Nihon University, commented that the difference in sentencing was explained by the difference in the number of victims (two in the Nagoya case, versus one in the Furuta case). Under the "Nagayama standard", the death penalty in Japan is rarely applied in cases with one victim. Itakura also stated that the prosecution in the Nagoya murder case had demonstrated clear premeditation, while in the Furuta case the intent to murder was more uncertain.
Aftermath
Furuta's funeral was held on 2 April 1989. During the ceremony, one of her friends delivered a eulogy written by her classmates, which stated:
Aftermath
Junko Furuta's funeral took place on 2 April 1989. During the service, a friend of hers read aloud a eulogy written by her classmates, expressing their sorrow and remembrance:
"Jun-chan, welcome back. I never imagined we would meet again like this. You endured such cruelty, didn't you? You went through so much, didn't you? I feel upset with myself for living unaware of what was happening. You were always gentle and cheerful, Jun-chan. The happi we made for the cultural festival looked beautiful on you. I will never forget that. We will make sure your death is not in vain. As we grow into adulthood, we will work toward a world where such horrible crimes no longer happen. We will keep you in our hearts and keep moving forward. The principal even brought your diploma. Thanks to this, all 47 of us in Class 3-8 were able to graduate. Jun-chan… there is no more pain or suffering now. Rest peacefully. Farewell, Jun-chan."
Junko Furuta's future employer, who had planned to hire her, gave her parents the uniform she would have worn in the role, and it was placed in her casket as a tribute. At her graduation, the principal personally handed her diploma to her parents. The site on Wakasu where her body was found has since been redeveloped into an industrial area.