The Murder of Junko Furuta

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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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a bigger ask, so i'll start
with that one. If you enjoy listening

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to this podcast, and you think
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out and told me that you actually
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media and that's awesome and that helps
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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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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