was a 17-year-old Japanese high school student who was abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered. Her abuse was mainly perpetrated by four male teenagers—Hiroshi Miyano (18), Jō Ogura (17), Shinji Minato (16), and Yasushi Watanabe (17)—and took place over a 40-day period starting on 25 November 1988.

Background

Furuta was born on 18 January 1971 and grew up in Misato, Saitama Prefecture, where she lived with her parents, older brother, and younger brother. At the time of her murder, she was a 17-year-old senior at . She worked a part-time job at a plastic molding factory from October 1988 to save up money for a planned graduation trip. Furuta accepted a job at an electronics retailer, where she planned on working after graduation. Furuta was well liked by her classmates and teachers, having high grades and infrequent absences. According to her friends, she dreamed of becoming an idol singer. The four main perpetrators had each dropped out of high school in the summer of 1988 and became involved in organized crime as (low-ranking ).

Kidnapping and abuse

On the evening of 25 November 1988, Miyano and Minato rode around Misato on their motorcycles with the intention of robbing and raping local women, and spotted Furuta, who was on her way home from her part-time job. Acting on Miyano's orders, Minato kicked Furuta off her bicycle and fled the scene. Miyano, under the pretense of witnessing the attack by coincidence, approached Furuta and offered to walk her home. After further gaining her trust, Miyano walked Furuta to a nearby warehouse and threatened her, telling her that he was a member and that he would spare her only if she followed his orders. The group dropped this pretense when it became clear that Minato's parents would not report them to the police. The parents later claimed that they did not intervene because they were afraid of their son, who had been increasingly violent toward them.

On the night of 28 November, Miyano and the others, along with Nakamura and Ihara, gang raped Furuta, after which Miyano shaved her pubic hair with a razor and used a match to burn her genital area. In early December, as punishment for an escape attempt, the group repeatedly punched Furuta in the face, and Miyano burned her ankles with a lighter. They forced Furuta to dance to music while naked, masturbate in front of them, and stand on the balcony in the middle of the night with little clothing, and inserted objects into her vagina and anus, including a metal rod and a bottle. the longest sentence typically given in Japan short of life imprisonment, which had been sought by the prosecution.

  • Jō Ogura was sentenced to five to ten years in prison. He was released in 1999, changed his last name to "Kamisaku", and began working in an IT position. In 2000, Kamisaku married a Chinese woman and moved to Chiba Prefecture, but divorced after a few years and returned to his mother's home in Saitama. He lost his job after his past became known to his colleagues, and again became involved in the . In 2004, Kamisaku was arrested for assaulting Takatoshi Isono, a 27-year-old acquaintance whom he thought was involved with a girlfriend. He shoved Isono into the trunk of a car and drove him to his mother's bar in Misato, where he assaulted him for four hours.
  • Shinji Minato was originally sentenced to five to six years in prison, and re-sentenced to five to nine years. His parents and brother were not charged. After his release in 1998, Minato moved in with his mother. In 2018, Minato, then unemployed, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, after striking a 32-year-old man in the shoulder with a metal baton and slashing his neck with a knife on a street in Kawaguchi, Saitama, during a dispute over a vehicle parking spot. In 2019, Minato was sentenced to one year and six months in prison, suspended with probation for three years.
  • Tetsuo Nakamura and Koichi Ihara, who also raped Furuta but did not participate in her murder, were released from juvenile detention by 2000. In the of 1988, for ‌a case which drew comparisons to the Furuta ‌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, despite the death sentence being commuted to life imprisonment in 1996.

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.

Furuta's intended future employer presented her parents with the uniform she would have worn in her position, and it was placed in her casket. At her graduation, the principal presented her parents with her diploma. The location on Wakasu where her body was discovered is now an industrial zone.

Notes

See also

  • Concrete – 2004 Japanese film based on the case
  • List of kidnappings
  • List of solved missing person cases: 1950–1999

References