40 Day Nightmare: The Torture and Murder of Junko Furuta
Junko Furuta was a 17 year old high school Japanese student who was abducted, sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered, by four high school boys. She was a beautiful, friendly, and popular girl who took her studies seriously. Sadly her life was taken because one particular boy’s romantic advances were declined by Junko, and he wasn’t going to let that slide.
**TRIGGER WARNING** This article contains graphic violence, bodily harm, and sexual assault.
Junko was born in Misato, Saitama Prefecture and lived with her parents, older brother, and younger brother. She attended Yashio-Minami high school and worked part time jobs after school hours to save up money for a graduation trip, and had big dreams of becoming a singer.
Her abductors were four boys who attended the same high school. Jo Ogura (age 17), Shinji Minato (age 16), Yasushi Watanabe (age 17), and the ringleader of the group, Miyano Hiroshi (age 18). Miyano had a history of problematic behavior since he was a young child, such as shoplifting and damaging school property, and continued committing crimes through the following years. At the time of Junko’s murder, Miyato was living with his girlfriend, who was the older sister of Yasushi Watanabe. However, Miyano ended up joining a gang and started committing sex crimes, which caused his girlfriend to end their relationship. During the torture and murder of Junko, they used the second floor of Minato’s house, where they frequently used as a hangout. Miyano also had connections to the Japanese mafia, which is called the Yakuza, and Minato had also previously participated in crimes for the Yakuza such a purse snatching, extortion, and rape. It’s possible that Junko wasn’t aware of their ties to the Yakuza or of their previous crimes. Additionally, a lot of English articles state that Miyano was the one who asked Junko to date him, while Japanese articles state that it was actually Minato who asked. So it’s unclear who it actually was.
THE KIDNAPPING
On November 25th, 1988, Miyano and Minato were walking around town when they noticed Junko on her bike around 8:30PM. Miyano ordered Minato to run over to her and push her off her bike then flee the scene, and under the pretense of having witnessed this happen, Miyano walked over to her, helped her up, and offered to walk her home safely. On their way there, he gained her trust, which allowed him to trick her into going into a warehouse where he threatened to kill her. In this warehouse he raped her, and then raped her again at a hotel nearby. From that hotel, Miyano called Minato and the other two perpetrators and bragged about what he had just done to Junko. Ogura asked Miyana to keep her in captivity to allow them and others to sexually assault her as well, as this group had a history of gang rape and had previously kidnapped and assaulted another girl, but ended up releasing her afterwards. That girl never reported it as she knew about their ties to the Yakuza and was terrified of what could happen to her and her family if she told.
Around 3:00AM, Miyano took Junko to a nearby park where the other three boys were waiting. They learned her home address in one of her notebooks and told her that they were part of the Yakuza, and that if she tried to escape, they’d kill her whole family. The boys overpowered her and took her back to Minato’s home where he lived with his parents. On November 27th, Junko’s parents reported her missing, and to hinder the investigation, Miyano forced her to call her parents three times to convince them that she had run away and was perfectly safe and staying with friends. Originally whenever Minato’s parents were around, they forced Junko to act like he was Minato’s girlfriend. However, they soon stopped the act when they realized his parents wouldn’t contact the police. Minato’s mother later confessed that they didn’t want to contact the police because their son had previously been violent towards them and they were afraid of his connections to the Yakuza.
THE TORTURE AND MURDER
The group held Junko prisoner for 40 days, where they repeatedly beat, raped, and tortured her. They would even invite other men and boys to the home to participate in her assault. On the night of November 28th, they invited two other boys, Tetsuo Nakumara and Koichi Ihara to the home. They went upstairs where Junko was sitting and the group drank cough medicine, pretending it was drugs, and acted high. Junko was screaming in fear and tried to run away, but was ultimately stopped. Hearing the commotion, Minato’s mother went to check on the boys, and they told her they were just messing around and everything was fine. After she left, the boys began to gangrape Junko, as she was in a state of unconsciousness, just staring at the ceiling without blinking.
Over the next 40 days, Junko was subjected to being raped on a daily basis. One time she was even raped by 12 different in the same day, and was raped by around 100 different men, around 400 different times.
The original four boys shaved her pubic hair, forced her to dance naked and masturbate while they listened to music, and when she was beaten so badly to the point where she couldn’t even walk, they forced her to sleep outside on the balcony during the cold winter with very little clothing, and also forced her to sleep in the freezer. Objects were also inserted into her vagina and anus, including a metal rod, a bottle, and a lit match. They also force-fed her large amounts of water, milk, and alcohol. There came a point where she was so injured and so sick, that she couldn’t even keep water down. She would instantly throw it up. She was also forced to inhale paint thinner and smoke multiple cigarettes at once, and was repeatedly burned on her legs and arms with lighter fluid. By the time the end of December came, Junko was extremely malnourished as she was only fed very little food, and eventually nothing but milk. She had extreme injuries and horrible infections and could no longer even walk up and down the stairs to use the bathroom, and became solely confined to the bedroom, where she lost full control of her bladder and bowels. Her face was so beaten that her nasal cavity was full of blood, and her brain had even shrunk from the damage.
At one point she had managed to sneak a phone call to the police, but was caught before she could say anything. As a punishment, she was again, severely beaten. She would even beg them to just kill her, but they always refused. Towards the end of her life, she was so beaten and sick that she lost all her beauty, and her body even started giving off a rotting smell, which eventually made the boys lose interest in her. This caused them to go out and gangrape another 19 year old woman, but was released afterwards.
On January 4th, 1989, Miyano lost a game of Mahjong and decided to take his anger out on Junko by pouring lighter fluid on her body and lighting her on fire. Junko allegedly tried putting out the fire, but ultimately became unresponsive. They continued to beat her, lighted a candle and dripped hot wax onto her face, placed two small candles on her eyelids, and forced her to drink her own urine. After she was kicked, she fell onto a stereo unit and began having convulsions. Considering the fact that she was bleeding heavily, and pus was squirting out of her infected burns, they covered their hands in plastic bags and continued to beat her, along with dropping an iron exercise ball onto her stomach multiple times. The attack lasted roughly two hours before she eventually passed away.
Being afraid of being charged for murder, the boys wrapped her body in blankets and shoved her body into a travel bag. Then, they placed her body in a 55-US-Gallon (210 liter) drum and filled it with cement. Around 8:00PM, they loaded it and disposed of it in a cement truck in Koto, Tokyo. During her captivity, Junko had mentioned that she had regretted not watching the last episode of Tonbo (Dragonfly), so Minyano found the video tape of the last episode and placed it in the travel bag. He claimed that he didn’t do this because he pitied Junko, but because he didn’t want her to return as a ghost and haunt him.
INVESTIGATION AND CONVICTION
On January 23rd, 1989, Miyano and Ogura were arrested for the gangrape of a 19 year old girl who they had kidnapped in December. On March 29th, two police officers came to question them, as womens underwear had been found at their addresses. During the questioning, Miyano believed that one of the officers was aware of the murder of Junko and his involvement in it. He assumed that Ogura confessed to the crimes to the police, so Miyano told the police where they could find her body. The officers were puzzled by this confession, as they weren’t talking about Junko. They were talking about the murders of a different woman and her seven year old son that took place several days before Junko’s abduction. (That case remains unsolved).
The police found the drum that contained Junko’s body and were able to identify her by her fingerprints. On April 1st, 1989, Ogura was arrested for another sexual assault, and was subsequently arrested for Junko’s murder. The arrest of Minato and Watanabe, along with Minato’s brother all followed. Several other people who had participated in the abuse and rape were also identified, including Tetsuo Nakamura and Koichi Ihara, who were all charged with rape after their DNA was found on and inside of Junko.
All four defendants plead guilty to “committing bodily injury that resulted in death,” rather than murder. Miyano was sentenced to 20 years in prison, Minato to 5 to 9 years, Watanabe to 5 to 7 years, and Ogura to 8 years in juvenile detention.
in July of 2004, Ogura was arrested for assaulting Takatoshi Isono, who was an acquaintance he thought his girlfriend may have been involved with. He racked Isono down, beat him, and shoved him into his truck, relocated him and beat him for hours. During that time, Ogura repeatedly threatened to kill the man, telling him that he had killed before and knew how to get away with it. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for assaulting Isono and has since been released. Ogura’s mother allegedly vandalized Junko’s grave, stating that she had been the reason her son’s life was ruined.
