Latest / 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories / The Murder of Junko Furuta

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The Murder of Junko Furuta · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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  Welcome to ten Minute Murder, brief and binge able true crime. I'm Joe
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  the host. Thank you for joining today, and before we jump into the
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  story, I have two quick favors to ask you. The first one is
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  As a matter of fact, I should start a rewards program. I
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  send out a bunch of punch cards and for every seventh episode share of ten
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  Minute Murder, you get a free episode. And that's funny because they're all
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  free. That's my first favor. My second one, give me a break
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  on the episode today with the pronunciations. I'm American, obviously, I went
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  to a public school. I took Spanish, so I know a little bit
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  of that. I lived in Germany for a time, so I know a
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  little bit of that. And I struggle with names as a whole, and
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  that's been established on this podcast. I don't know what the connection is with
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  my brain and names. I just can't quite make it all the time.
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  But today's Japan, and if it weren't such a highly requested story, I
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  wouldn't even attempt because I don't like to get things wrong. So favorite number
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  two. Give me a little leeway on the pronunciations. I researched them.
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  I learned how to say them, but that doesn't mean I'm going to como
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  sad say get it correct. Hey, if this is your first time listening
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  anywhere that that is possible. Your positive feedback is appreciated. Go to ten
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  minute Murder dot com for all things related to ten Minute Murder. Now to
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  today's story. The story today starts with a question, what is the most
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  disturbing true crime case you've ever heard of? Every time this question is asked,
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  there's one case that is mentioned nearly every time, the murder of Junko
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  Faruda. You're about to find out why this particular Japanese murder case made it
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  to the mainstream of true crime discussion. In all of the online discussions about
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  murder, Junko is often reduced to just the horrific torture she endured and the
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  final indignity of her body being disposed of in a concrete drum. It's important
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  to acknowledge that she was more than just a murder victim. She was a
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  daughter and a sister, a motivated high school student that was excited for her
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  upcoming graduation trip. Junko was pretty and charismatic, popular at school, and
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  hoped that one day she would become a Japanese idol singer. All of these
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  hopes for the future were brutally cut short by her attackers. The Wikipedia article
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  on Junko's murder describes the case as the worst case of juvenile delinquency in postwar
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  Japan. Despite this, the four main perpetrators of the crime received incredibly light
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  sentences, and some of them escaping with only a short stint and juvenile detention.
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  The heaviest sentence received was only twenty years in prison, despite the fact
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  that all of the perpetrators were involved in kidnapping torturing, sexually assaulting, and
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  finally murdering an innocent high school student. Junko's torture and murder were carried out
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  mostly by four teenage accomplices Hiroshi Mayano, who was the oldest at eighteen years
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  old, Joe Ogora, and Yasushi wants an Abi, who were both seventeen
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  and sixteen year old Sinji Manato. It might seem unthinkable that four teenage boys
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  would commit such a horrific crime, but the four of them weren't exactly new
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  to a legal activity. Acting together. They had previously raped other young women,
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  and they were looking to do it again. It was the twenty fifth
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  of November nineteen eighty eight, and Junko had finished work for the evening.
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  She set out to cycle home just after eight thirty pm when she was spotted
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  by the boys who were looking for a woman to rob and sexually assault.
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  Her. Attackers followed a pretty polished plan, pretending they didn't know each other.
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  One assailant aggressively knocked Junko off of her bike, and the other approach
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  to ask if she was okay, before generously offering to make sure she got
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  home safe. Junko accepted the offer. After a actually assaulting Junko multiple times,
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  Miano, the group's ringleader, called his other friends to tell them he
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  had kidnapped the girl. The boys had previously gang raped other women, but
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  they'd always released them after the assault was over. This time, they did
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  not plan on letting Junko go. After the boys rummaged through Junko's backpack,
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  they found her home address written down in a note book. They told their
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  captive that they knew her family's address and said that if she did not comply
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  with their demands, they would hurt her family. Then, Junko was transported
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  to a house owned by Manato's parents. Two days after Junko disappeared, her
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  worried parents phoned the police to report their daughter missing. In response, her
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  abductors made Junko make several phone calls to her parents, where she told them
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  that she had left willingly, was visiting friends, and would not be returning
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  home. Unfortunately, this was enough proof for the police investigation to be called
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  off. When Shinji's parents arrived at the house and saw Junko there, it
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  could have been the lifeline she needed, but her abductors had planned for this
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  in advance. They made Junko pretend to be Shinji's girlfriend. However, they
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  didn't have to worry. Shinji's parents were cautious about their son's increasingly aggressive criminal
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  behavior, and eventually it was obvious that neither of his parents would ever intervene.
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  Shinji stopped pretending to be dating Junko, making it obvious that she was
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  an unwilling captive. Neither of his parents did anything to help her. Over
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  the following weeks, Junko's abductors grew increasingly violent towards her. They invited two
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  more friends over to gang rape Junko together. When her screams woke up Shinji's
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  parents, once again, neither of them intervened. It was the first time
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  the group of teenagers would invite friends and acquaintances over to assault Junko with them,
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  but it wasn't the last. Over the next forty days of her captivity,
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  this happened repeatedly with different acquaintances, many of whom were never charged for
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  their crimes against Junko. What Junko endured during those forty days was horrific beyond
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  words, and it's a miracle that she was able to survive. As long
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  as she did. The more desensitized her captors became to her fear and pain,
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  the more they pushed the limits of what they could do to her.
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  She was force fed alcohol, made to breathe, toxic paint thinner, and
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  had multiple objects inserted into her, including a lit match. They poured lighter
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  fluid on her body and set her on fire, creating deep burns which then
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  became infected. At first, her abductors only fed her tiny amounts of food,
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  and then they refused to give her anything but milk to eat or drink.
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  Junko grew weaker and weaker. She was no longer able to walk around,
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  and the swelling around her face from the torture and malnutrition made it impossible
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  to recognize her. As her burns became necrotic and started to smell, her
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  kidnappers were no longer sexually aroused by her, and the sexual assaults stopped.
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  Instead, they kidnapped another young woman to satisfy these urges. It was the
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  fourth of January nineteen eighty nine when Junko's body finally gave up. Hiroshi Miyano
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  once again covered her body with lighter fluid and set her on fire. Initially,
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  Junko weakly tried to extinguish the flames, but then slipped into unconsciousness.
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  The boys poured hot wax over her face and continued to beat, torture,
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  and humiliate her. They were disgusted by the state of her infected wounds,
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  so they placed plastic bags over their hands so that they could continue the beatings.
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  Two hours later, Junko Faruta was dead. With a dead body on
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  their hands, the boys were scared of two things, being arrested for her
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  kidnapping and murder, and the possibility of Junko's vengeful spirit coming back to get
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  revenge on them for her death. They tried to avoid these issues by disposing
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  of the body in a two hundred ten leader drum, which they filled with
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  concrete. Next to her body, they placed something strange, a videotape of
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  the final episode of Tambo, which Junko had expressed sadness about not watching.
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  This might seem like maybe a tiny act of kindness, but really it was
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  an attempt to appease Junko's spirit so that she wouldn't haunt them. With Junko's
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  family still believing that she had run away, her abductors and murderers almost got
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  away with the crime. It was only when two members of the group were
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  arrested for a different sexual assault that the walls began to close in on them.
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  During his interrogation, the ring leader, Hiroshimiano, made a crucial error.
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  He believed that the police somehow had become aware of Junko's murder. Without
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  prompting, he told the extremely puzzled officers where Junko's body was located, inadvertently
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  revealing both that Junko was dead and that he was the one that killed her.
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  The next day, her body was found, and, despite being merged
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  in concrete, fingerprints provided a positive ID. The other three accomplices were arrested.
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  Amazingly, DNA evidence in Junko's body also allowed some of the acquaintances who
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  had played a role in her sexual assaults to be identified and arrested for rape.
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  Out of all the indignities that Junko suffered, the one that sticks in
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  the minds of many people is the lack of justice served to our killers.
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  Because their murderers were underage, their identities were suppressed, and they all made
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  the decision to avoid pleading guilty to murder, instead pleading only that they had
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  committed bodily injury resulting in death. A Japanese magazine discovered the identities of the
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  boys and leaked their full names, giving the justification that none of the killers
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  deserved name suppression because of the horrific crime they had committed. The ringleader,
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  Miano, received the longest sentence, twenty years in prison. Unsurprisingly, several
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  of the perpetrators reoffended, each committing combinations of assault, attempt, murder,
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  and fraud. The mother of one of the killers even vandalized Junko's grave,
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  blaming her for ruining the life of her son, even though that same son,
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  Joe or Gura, had repeatedly bragged about assaulting and killing Junko. Shinji
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  Minato's parents, who were aware of Junko's kidnap and abuse, were never charged
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  for their failure to report the crime, despite the videotape that they buried next
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  to her body. If there is any chance that ghosts are real, nobody
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  should fear being haunted more than the four killers of Junko Ferruta