- Murder of Junko Furuta
-
Concrete-encased high school girl murder case (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 murder in which a Japanese girl, 16-year-old Junko Furuta (古田 順子 Furuta Junko), was murdered.
Contents
Crime
On November 25, 1988, four boys, including a 17-year-old whose personal name was Jō and would be later given the surname Kamisaku,[1] abducted and held Furuta, a third-year high school (12th grade) student from Misato, Saitama Prefecture, for 44 days. They kept her captive in the house owned by the parents of Kamisaku, in the Ayase district of Adachi, Tokyo.[2]
To forestall a manhunt, one of them forced 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 the girlfriend of one of the boys when his (Kamisaku's) parents were around, but when he was sure they would not call the police, he dropped the pretext. Furuta tried to escape several times, begging the parents to help her, but they did nothing, apparently out of fear that a second boy would hurt them. This second boy 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 (over 400 times), beat her with metal rods and golf clubs, introduced foreign objects including a hot 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. It was also stated that some time after the first acts of torture, she became unable to drink water, which would cause her to vomit whenever she attempted to do so. 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 mahjong solitaire 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 concrete; the perpetrators disposed the drum in a tract of reclaimed land in Kōtō, Tokyo.[3]
Arrest and punishment
The boys were arrested and tried as adults; but, because of Japanese handling of crimes committed by juveniles, their identities were concealed by the court. However, the magazine Shūkan Bunshun reported their real names, claiming that "human rights aren't needed for brutes".[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.
In July 1990 a lower court sentenced the leader to seventeen years in prison. The court sentenced one accomplice to a four- to six-year term, one accomplice to a three- to four-year term, and another accomplice to an indefinite five- to ten-year term. The leader and the first two of the three appealed their rulings. The higher court gave more severe sentences to the three appealing parties. The presiding judge, Ryūji Yanase, said that the court did so because of the nature of the crime, the effect on the victim's family, and the effects of the crime on society. The leader received a twenty-year sentence, the second highest possible sentence after life imprisonment. Of the two appealing accomplices, the one that originally got four to six years, received a five- to nine-year term. The other accomplice had his sentence upgraded to a five- to seven-year term.[3]
Effect
The case drew nationwide attention towards the sentencing and rehabilitation of youthful offenders, especially in the context of youths charged as adults, and became a media sensation.
At least three Japanese-language books have been written about the incident.[4]
In popular culture
A Japanese manga, 17 Sai, written by Fujii Seiji and illustrated by Kamata Youji, was released in 2004, chronicling the events of the crime.[citation needed]
An exploitation 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 Katsuya Matsumura in 1995. Yujin Kitagawa (later a member of the music duo Yuzu) played the role of principal culprit.[5][6]
Another film, Concrete (コンクリート, aka Schoolgirl in Cement, 2004), was based on one of the books written about the incident.
In 2006, the Japanese rock/metal band the Gazette released a song on their album Nil titled "Taion" ("Body Temperature") that is a tribute to the girl.
Guro manga artist Waita Uziga's "True Modern Stories of the Bizarre" includes the story "Schoolgirl in Concrete", based on the murder case of Junko Furuta.[citation needed]
See also
References
- ^ a b Wijers-Hasegawa, Yumi, "Man who killed as child back in court", The Japan Times, July 29, 2004.
- ^ Utting, Gerald. "Sales tax creates tempest in a Tokyo teapot." Toronto Star. April 3, 1989. A15. Retrieved on September 29, 2009. Requires payment.
- ^ a b "Rapist, Murderer Given 20-Year Sentence." The Daily Yomiuri. Sunday July 13, 1991. Page 2. Retrieved from LexisNexis on September 29, 2009.
- ^ 渥美饒兒『十七歳、悪の履歴書-女子高生コンクリート詰め殺人事件』作品社、2003年。ISBN 4878935723. 門野晴子『女子高生コンクリート詰め殺人事件―彼女のくやしさがわかりますか?』おんな通信社編、社会評論社、1990年。佐瀬稔『うちの子が、なぜ!―女子高生コンクリート詰め殺人事件』草思社、1990年。ISBN 479420390X.
- ^ Joshikôsei konkuriito-dume satsujin-jiken at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ "Filme mit Beteiligung von Yujin Kitagawa" (in German). http://web.archive.org/web/20090611030341/http://www.ofdb.de/view.php?page=liste&Name=Yujin+Kitagawa. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
- "Torture and Murder in Tokyo". The Japan Times Weekly Overseas Edition. 1989-08-19.
External links
Categories:- Murder in Japan
- Murder in 1989
- 1989 in Japan
- Murder committed by minors
- Japanese torture victims
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