Murder of Junko Furuta

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Concrete-encased high school girl murder (女子高生コンクリート詰め殺人事件, Joshikōsei konkurīto-zume satsujin-jiken^?) was a 1988-89 incident in which a Japanese girl, Junko Furuta (古田順子, Furuta Junko^?), 16 at that time, was murdered. This incident has a high level of notoriety in Japan.

Contents 1 The crime 2 Arrest and punishment 3 Media 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] The crime

On 25th November 1988, Hiroshi Miyano (Boy A, then 18), Yuzuru Ogura (Boy B; Jo Kamisaku, then 17; Kamisaku was a new family name he took after being released from prison ^[1]), Nobuharu Minato (Boy C, then 16) and Yasushi Watanabe (Boy D, then 17) from Tokyo abducted and held Furuta, a Third year high school (grade 12) student from Misato, Saitama Prefecture, for 41 days. They kept her captive in the house owned by the parents of Boy C, located in the Ayase district of Adachi, Tokyo. ^[2] To forestall a manhunt, Miyano coerced Furuta into calling her own parents and telling them that she had run away from home, but was with "a friend" and was not in danger. He also browbeat her into posing as one of the boys' girlfriends when the parents of the house where she was held were around, but when it became clear that the parents would not call the police, he dropped this pretext. Furuta tried to escape several times, begging the parents more than once to help her, but they did nothing, apparently out of fear that Miyano would hurt them. Miyano was at the time a low-level yakuza leader and had bragged that he could use his connections to kill anyone who interfered.

According to their statements at their trial, the four of them raped her, beat her with metal rods and golf clubs, introduced foreign objects including a light bulb into her vagina, made her eat cockroaches and drink her own urine, inserted fireworks into her anus and set them off, forced Furuta to masturbate, cut her nipple with pliers, dropped dumbbells onto her stomach, and burned her with cigarettes and lighters. One of the burnings was punishment for attempting to call the police. At one point her injuries were so severe that according to one of the boys it took more than an hour for her to crawl downstairs to use the bathroom. They also related that "possibly a hundred different people" knew that Furuta had been imprisoned there, but it is not clear if this means they visited the house at different times while she was imprisoned there, or themselves either raped or abused her. When the boys refused to let her leave, she begged them on several occasions to "kill (her) and get it over with".

On January 4, 1989, using a loss at mah-jong as a pretext, the four beat her with an iron barbell, poured lighter fluid on her legs, arms, face and stomach, and set her on fire. She died later that day of shock. The four boys claimed that they were not aware of how badly injured she was, and that they believed she had been malingering.

On January 5, the killers hid her corpse in a 55-gallon drum filled with cement; the perpetrators disposed the drum in a tract of reclaimed land in Koto, Tokyo.

[edit] Arrest and punishment

The boys were arrested and tried as adults; but, because of Japanese handling of crimes committed by juveniles, their identities were sealed by the court. However, a weekly magazine Shūkan Bunshun reported their real names, claiming that "human rights aren't needed for brutes."^[3] Furuta's real name and details about her personal life were reported exhaustively in the media. Kamisaku was judged as a sub leader, at least according to the official trial.

The four boys pled guilty to a reduced charge of "committing bodily injury that resulted in death", rather than murder. Miyano's parents sold their house for approximately 50 million yen and paid this as compensation to Furuta's family.^{[citation needed]}

For his participation in the crime, Kamisaku served eight years in a juvenile prison before he was released, in August 1999. In July 2004, he was arrested for assaulting an acquaintance, whom he believed to be luring a girlfriend away from him, and allegedly bragged about his earlier infamy. ^[1] Kamisaku was sentenced to seven years in prison for the beating.

Junko's parents were dismayed by the sentences received by their daughter's killers, and enjoined a civil suit against the parents of the boy in whose home the crimes were committed. When some of the convictions were overturned on the basis of problematic physical evidence (the semen and pubic hair recovered from the body did not match those of the boys who were arrested), the lawyer handling the civil suit decided there was no case to be made and refused to represent them further. (There is speculation that the evidence may have been contaminated—for example, by unidentified persons who raped Furuta.)^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Media

The case drew nationwide attention towards the sentencing and rehabilitation of youthful offenders, especially in the context of youths tried as adults, and became a media sensation.

At least two Japanese-language books have been written about the incident.

An exploitative film, Joshikōsei konkurīto-zume satsujin-jiken (女子高生コンクリート詰め殺人事件, Concrete-Encased High School Girl Murder Case^?), was made about the incident by director Katsuya Matsumura in 1995. Yujin Kitagawa (later member of music duo Yuzu) played the role of principal culprit in the film.^[4][5] Another film, Concrete (コンクリート^?, AKA Schoolgirl in Cement), directed by Hiromu Nakamura, was made in 2004 and based on one of the books written about the incident.

In 2006, the Japanese Visual Kei band the GazettE released a song on their album NIL called "Taion" (Body Temperature); the song is a tribute to the girl.

Waita Uziga's "True Modern Stories of the Bizarre" includes the story: Schoolgirl In Concrete, based on the murder case of Junko Furuta.

[edit] See also

• Pai Hsiao-yen
• Hello Kitty murder
• Tsutomu Miyazaki

[edit] References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (October 2008)

• "Torture and Murder in Tokyo". The Japan Times Weekly Overseas Edition. 1989-08-19. 

[edit] External links

• (Japanese) Court document
• Joshikôsei konkuriito-dume satsujin-jiken at the Internet Movie Database
• {Film Review}[2]