She Was Tortured And Abused For 44 Days By 4 People

The heart shattering plight of Junko Furuta

This story is disturbing. It will disturb you. It will disturb you.

Junko Furuta was born on January 18, 1971, in Misato, a city in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. She came into the world as the second child of her parents, who already had an older son.

Her family was an ordinary, working-class Japanese household. Her father worked as a factory employee, while her mother took care of the home and the children. They lived a simple life in a suburban area, typical of many families in Japan during that time.

Junko grew up in a close-knit family environment. She was known to be a kind and gentle girl, someone who got along well with others. People who knew her often described her as cheerful, polite, and considerate.

At school, Junko attended Yashio-Minami High School in Misato. She was in her second year of high school when her life took a tragic turn. As a student, she was diligent and well-behaved.

She earned good grades and stayed out of trouble, which made her popular among her teachers and classmates. Junko was not the type to get involved in risky behavior or associate with dangerous people.

Beyond her studies, Junko had a part-time job at a local electronics shop. She worked there after school. Her job was at a place called Nakano Musen, where she handled small tasks and interacted with customers.

Junko also had dreams she wanted to pursue. Like many teenagers, she looked forward to finishing high school and starting the next chapter of her life. However, she had absolutely no idea how horribly she’d lose it.

On November 25, 1988, Junko Furuta was abducted while returning home from her part-time job. It was a Friday evening, and she had finished her shift at the electronics shop. She left the shop around 8:30 p.m. and began her usual journey back to her family’s house.

Junko often rode her bicycle for this short trip. The streets were familiar to her, and the area was a quiet suburb, not a place where she expected danger.

That night, four teenage boys were already in the area, looking for a target. These boys were Hiroshi Miyano, Jō Ogura, Shinji Minato, and Yasushi Watanabe, a gang of degenerates.

Hiroshi Miyano, the leader, was 18 years old and had a reputation as a low-ranking member of the yakuza, Japan’s organized crime group. The others followed his lead. They had been roaming around Misato, planning to harass or attack someone, when they spotted Junko riding her bike alone.

The abduction began with a calculated trick. As Junko cycled through a dimly lit street, Hiroshi Miyano and Jō Ogura approached her. Miyano staged an act to catch her off guard.

He deliberately bumped into her and knocked her off her bicycle, making it look like an accident. When Junko fell, he pretended to help her, acting concerned.

Meanwhile, Jō Ogura stayed nearby, ready to assist. Before Junko could react or call for help, Miyano threatened her with a weapon, likely a knife, and forced her to stop struggling.

Once they had control of her, the boys acted quickly. They took Junko away from the public street to avoid being seen. They forced her to walk with them to a warehouse where they could hide her temporarily.

Her bicycle was left behind, abandoned on the road or hidden somewhere out of sight. From there, they decided to take her to a house owned by Shinji Minato’s parents in Adachi, a district in Tokyo about an hour away from Misato. The group used a car to transport her.

Right after the abduction, Junko was brought to the Minato family home. The house was in a residential neighborhood, and Shinji Minato’s parents were away and unaware of what was happening.

The boys locked Junko in an upstairs room, starting what would become 44 days of captivity. They began harassing and abusing her almost immediately. At that point, Junko’s family still had no idea where she was.

Hiroshi Miyano was 18 years old at the time of the abduction in November 1988. He was the leader of the group and the most dominant figure. Born in 1970, he grew up in Adachi, Tokyo.

His family life was unstable, with reports suggesting his parents were not heavily involved in his upbringing. Miyano dropped out of high school and became known as a small-time thug.

He had ties to the yakuza, Japan’s organized crime syndicate, though he was only a low-level associate. Before Junko’s case, he was involved in petty crimes like theft and extortion, often targeting weaker students or local people.

Jō Ogura was 17 years old during the crime. Born in 1971, he also came from Adachi, Tokyo. His full name was Nobuharu Ogura, but he went by Jō.

Like Miyano, he had a difficult home life, with little parental supervision. He was a high school dropout and a close follower of Miyano. Ogura had a history of juvenile delinquency, including fights and minor thefts.

He was known for his aggressive personality and often joined Miyano in bullying others. His connection to crime was not as deep as Miyano’s, but he was already on a path of trouble before meeting Junko.

Shinji Minato was 16 years old at the time of the abduction. Born in 1972, he lived with his parents in Adachi, Tokyo, in the house where Junko was later held.

Minato’s family was working-class, and his parents ran a small business. He was still in school but had a reputation for bad behavior. He hung out with older delinquents like Miyano and Ogura, despite being younger.

Before this case, Minato had been involved in minor offenses, such as vandalism and skipping school. His home became the site of the crime because his parents were often absent, giving the group a place to operate.

Yasushi Watanabe was also 17 years old in November 1988. Born in 1971, he was from the same area as the others, Adachi, Tokyo. Less is known about his family background, but he came from a similar environment of neglect or instability.

Watanabe was another high school dropout who followed Miyano’s lead. He had a record of petty crimes, including shoplifting and fighting, though he was not as prominent as Miyano or Ogura.

Together, these four boys formed a tight-knit gang of delinquents. Before Junko’s case, their crimes were mostly impulsive, like stealing or intimidating people in their neighborhood. None had been involved in anything as serious as abduction or murder until they targeted Junko.

Hell

Junko Furuta’s 44 days of captivity began on November 25, 1988, after her abduction. She was held in a two-story house owned by Shinji Minato’s parents in Ayakoji, a residential area of Adachi, Tokyo.

The house was an ordinary suburban home, located in a quiet neighborhood. Shinji Minato lived there with his family, but his parents were often away or unaware of what was happening upstairs. The boys chose this location because it gave them privacy and control.

In the first few days, Junko was confined to a small room on the second floor. The room had basic furnishings, like a bed and a few items, but it became her prison.

The four main perpetrators, Hiroshi Miyano, Jō Ogura, Shinji Minato, and Yasushi Watanabe, kept her locked inside. They took turns watching her to make sure she could not escape. The windows were sealed, and the door was secured to prevent her from getting out.

The initial acts of abuse started almost immediately after they brought her to the house. Hiroshi Miyano, the leader, raped her shortly after the abduction. The others joined in, assaulting her multiple times. The abuse was not planned in detail, but it quickly became a daily routine for them.

Beyond the sexual assaults, the boys inflicted other forms of harm. They beat her with their fists and kicked her body, leaving bruises. They laughed at her suffering and taunted her, calling her names and threatening worse punishment if she resisted.

They gave her little food or water, just enough to keep her alive. Sometimes they offered her scraps or forced her to eat in front of them while they mocked her. Junko was broken, too scared and hurt to fight back

In those first days, the perpetrators also tried to cover their tracks. They forced Junko to call her family and lie about her situation. Under their threats, she told her parents she had run away and was staying with a friend.

This phone call happened within a day or two of her abduction. Her voice was shaky, but she followed their orders to avoid more beating. Her family believed her at first, and this delayed any police search.

The early days of captivity established the power the boys held over Junko. They brought other friends to the house, showing her off as some sort of trophy and sometimes letting them join in the abuse. The group grew bolder, knowing no one was coming to stop them.

The middle part of Junko Furuta’s 44 days in captivity spanned from early December 1988 to late December 1988. During this time, the torture she endured grew much worse.

The four main perpetrators escalated their violence, turning the small room in the Minato family home into a dungeon. Junko’s condition deteriorated, badly.

With time the boys grew more and more sadistic. They no longer limited themselves to beatings and sexual assaults, which had marked the early days. Now, they used objects to hurt her.

They struck her with metal bars and golf clubs, hitting her head, arms, and legs. Her body became covered in bruises and cuts. They burned her skin with cigarettes and lighters, pressing the flames against her arms, legs, and face. These burns left permanent marks all over. They also poured hot wax on her, laughing as she was shrieking in pain.

The boys were particular about inserting foreign objects into her body, including glass bottles and metal rods, causing internal injuries. They beat her hands and feet with heavy objects until her bones broke.

Her face swelled from repeated punches, and her teeth were damaged or knocked out. They forced her to drink large amounts of alcohol, making her sick and disoriented. At one point, they dropped a dumbbell on her abdomen, causing severe trauma to her intestine. These acts were not random, they were deliberate attempts to break her physically and mentally.

The conditions in the room grew unbearable. Junko was rarely allowed to bathe, and the boys denied her proper food. They gave her scraps or forced her to eat cockroaches and drink her own urine when they ran out of other ways to humiliate her.

The room smelled of blood, sweat, and filth. She was often tied up with ropes or left naked on the floor, too weak to move. The boys invited more friends to the house, and some joined in the abuse, turning her suffering into a twisted form of entertainment.

Despite the escalating torture, Junko tried to survive. She begged for mercy, hoping to appeal to their humanity. She stayed quiet at times, perhaps to avoid provoking them further. When they forced her to stand or perform tasks, she complied as best she could, even with her injuries.

By late December, Junko’s health was critical. She could barely walk or speak. Her face was unrecognizable from swelling and burns. She lost control of her bodily functions because of the internal injuries so she often soiled herself, likely due to damage to her bladder.

The boys noticed her weakening state, but instead of stopping, they continued the abuse with even more brutality—Junko’s final days were fast approaching.

The final days of Junko Furuta’s captivity took place in early January 1989, ending with her death on January 4. By this point, she had endured over five weeks of relentless torture.

She could not eat or drink properly, and her weight had dropped drastically. The boys continued to torment her, even as she faded. On January 1, 1989, they beat her with an iron barbell and set her legs on fire with lighter fluid. She begged them to kill her and end her suffering, but they refused.

On January 4, 1989, the final events unfolded. That morning, Junko’s condition was critical. She was lying on the floor of the upstairs room, unable to stand or respond much. The boys decided to play a game of mahjong and lost, which angered them.

In their frustration, they turned on Junko again. They poured lighter fluid on her body and set her on fire. The flames burned her legs, stomach, and face, adding to her already extensive injuries. She writhed in agony but was too weak to fight back. After putting out the fire, they beat her with bamboo sticks and fists. This attack lasted for hours.

Junko’s suffering would finally come to an end on the 4th day of January, 1989. She died after fighting for 44 days. The exact cause of death was a combination of factors, her body gave out from shock, blood loss, and multiple organ failure due to the burns, beatings, and weeks of starvation.

She slipped into unconsciousness and stopped breathing while the boys were still in the house. When they realized she was dead, they panicked. Her death was not part of their plan, they had intended to keep her alive for their amusement.

After Junko died, the perpetrators acted quickly to hide their crime. They wrapped her body in blankets to cover the evidence of torture. They then placed her corpse in a 55-gallon metal drum they found nearby.

To dispose of her, they filled the drum with wet concrete, encasing her body inside. That night or the next day, they took the drum to a vacant lot in Kōtō, a district in Tokyo about 20 kilometers from Adachi. They dumped it in an area used for construction waste, hoping no one would find it.

The drum blended in with the debris, and they left it there, thinking they had gotten away with the murder. Junko’s body remained hidden until the police discovered it weeks later.

The police investigation into Junko Furuta’s case began after her parents reported her missing on November 27, 1988. She had not returned home from her part-time job two days earlier, and her family grew worried.

At first, the police had little to go on. The perpetrators had forced Junko to call her mother three times, saying she had run away and was safe with friends. This delayed any serious search because her parents believed her at the start.

The breakthrough came weeks later, in late January 1989, but not because of Junko’s case directly. On January 23, Hiroshi Miyano and Jō Ogura were arrested for a different crime, the gang rape of a 19-year-old woman they had kidnapped in December 1988.

This unrelated assault happened after Junko’s death on January 4. During questioning at the police station, the officers focused on this other rape case. They had no clue about Junko’s murder yet. Miyano, thinking Ogura had already confessed to something bigger, got nervous.

He wrongly assumed the police were asking about Junko. To save himself, he blurted out details of her murder and told them where her body was hidden.

The police were confused at first because Miyano’s confession did not match the crime they were investigating. They had been looking into the December rape, not a murder.

His words led them to suspect another crime had occurred. Miyano revealed that Junko’s body was in a metal drum filled with concrete, dumped in a vacant lot in Kōtō, Tokyo.

On March 29, 1989, officers went to the site he described, now part of Wakasu Park, and found the drum among construction debris. They opened it and confirmed it held a body. Using fingerprints, they identified the remains as Junko Furuta’s, linking her to the missing person report from November.

With this discovery, the police shifted their focus to the murder. They arrested Miyano and Ogura again, this time for Junko’s killing. The arrests happened quickly after the body was found. Miyano was already in custody from the earlier rape charge, so they held him on the new suspicion.

Ogura was picked up soon after, on April 1, 1989, for both the December rape and Junko’s murder. The police then traced the other two main perpetrators, Shinji Minato and Yasushi Watanabe, through Miyano and Ogura’s statements.

Minato and Watanabe were arrested in the following days, along with Minato’s brother, who had known about the captivity but did not act. The arrests took place without much resistance, as the boys were caught off guard by how fast the police connected the dots.

At the crime scene, detectives found very disturbing evidence. They examined a cup with a urine odor, wounds on different parts of Furuta’s body, fireworks, cigarette lighters, a light bulb, a rope stained with blood, blood leaking from her mouth and nose, dumbbells, a barbell, and containers of flammable liquids.

Additionally, they observed bottles with blood on them, a golf club, bamboo sticks, iron rods, burned eyelids, sewing needles covered in blood, puncture wounds on her chest, a missing left nipple, blood in her private area, lighter fluid, and pliers marked with blood.

Photographs capturing various sections of Furuta’s severely damaged body were also taken during the investigation. The evidence was further backed by the statements from the kidnappers.

(Some experts analysing the story of recent claim the perpetrators and the media might have embellished the story a little because they doubt any human being can endure all of that for so long. What do you think?)

Ogura, Minato, and Watanabe admitted to parts of the crime, though they avoided calling it murder. They claimed they did not mean to kill Junko, only to hurt her. The police also identified two others, Tetsuo Nakamura and Koichi Ihara, who had raped Junko during her captivity but were not there when she died.

These two were arrested later, charged with assault rather than murder, based on DNA evidence found on Junko’s body.

The investigation revealed the full horror of the 44 days Junko spent in captivity. The police interviewed neighbors and friends who had been to the Minato house, confirming that many knew something was wrong but did nothing.

One boy had even called the police earlier, reporting a girl being held, but when officers visited, the perpetrators convinced them no one was there, and the police left. Another time, Junko had dialed emergency services herself, but the boys caught her before she could speak, and the call was cut off.

The arrests marked the end of the initial investigation. The police had the four main perpetrators in custody, along with others involved to lesser degrees. The investigation handed over to the courts. A trial date would be set.

Trial

The trial of the four main perpetrators began in 1989 after their arrests. It took place in the Tokyo District Court. The proceedings were held separately for each defendant because some were minors under Japanese law at the time of the crime, though all were tried as adults due to the severity of the case.

The charges against the four were serious. They faced accusations of abduction, unlawful confinement, rape, and murder. The prosecution detailed how they kidnapped Junko on November 25, 1988, held her captive for 44 days, subjected her to repeated sexual assaults, and caused her death on January 4, 1989, through torture and neglect.

Additional charges included bodily injury resulting in death and the illegal disposal of her body in a concrete-filled drum. The evidence included Junko’s remains, DNA from the scene, and the perpetrators’ own confessions, though they tried to minimize their roles by saying her death was not planned.

The court’s decisions came after months of hearings. On July 17, 1990, Hiroshi Miyano, the leader, was found guilty on all major charges. The judge ruled that his actions showed intent to harm, even if death was not the goal, and sentenced him to 17 years in prison, later increased to 20 years on appeal by the prosecution, who wanted a life sentence.

Jō Ogura, also heavily involved, was convicted of the same crimes. He received an eight-year sentence as a juvenile, though he was 17 at the time of the abduction, because the court considered his age and lesser leadership role.

Shinji Minato, whose house was the crime scene, was found guilty and sentenced to five to nine years due to his youth (he was 16), and his cooperation with police. Yasushi Watanabe, another follower, received five to seven years for his part in the abuse and murder, with the court noting he acted under Miyano’s influence.

The sentences shocked the public. Many Japanese people felt the punishments were too light for such a brutal crime. Junko’s family, especially her parents, expressed deep disappointment, believing life sentences or even the death penalty were deserved.

Crowds gathered outside the courthouse during the trial in protest. Newspapers and television covered the case heavily, calling it a failure of the legal system.

Critics pointed out that Japan’s juvenile laws protected the perpetrators, since three were under 18 when the crime started, limiting the maximum penalties. Protests erupted, and petitions circulated, asking for harsher laws and longer terms, but the sentences stood after appeals.

Public reaction went beyond anger at the court. People mourned Junko, leaving flowers at the site where her body was found in Kōtō. The trial showed a lot of flaws in police response, like when officers visited the Minato house but left without searching. The perpetrators’ names, were initially protected because they were minors until they got leaked to the press.

After the trial ended in 1990, the four main perpetrators, Hiroshi Miyano, Jō Ogura, Shinji Minato, and Yasushi Watanabe, served their prison sentences and were eventually released.

Hiroshi Miyano, the leader, received 20 years, the longest sentence. He got out of prison in August 2009 after serving about 17 years, with time reduced for good behavior.

After his release, he stayed involved with the yakuza, Japan’s organized crime group. In 2013, he was arrested again for fraud, scamming someone out of money, and served a short term. His current whereabouts are not widely known, but he is believed to live quietly under a new name.

Jō Ogura, sentenced to eight years, was released in 1999. He changed his name to Jō Kamisaku. In 2004, he attacked a man over a personal dispute and went back to prison for seven years, getting out in 2011.

Shinji Minato, who got five to nine years, was freed around 1998. In 2018, he was arrested for attempted murder after attacking a man with a metal rod, receiving a four-year sentence. He got out in 2022 and there are rumors that he’s active on twitter currently.

Yasushi Watanabe, sentenced to five to seven years, was released in 1996. He lived with his mother in Tokyo but developed a brain disease by 2005. He died in May 2021 at age 49, the only one who did not reoffend.

Junko’s family suffered deeply after the trial. Her mother, Akiko Furuta, had a mental breakdown when she learned the full details of her daughter’s torture. She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and needed long-term care.

Junko’s funeral was held on April 2, 1989, where her school principal gave her a diploma, a small gesture to honor her memory.