Junko Furuta

Junko Furuta was 17 when she was brutally raped and murdered by four teenage boys led by Shinji Minato and his friends Hiroshi Miyano, Jo Ogura and Yasushi Watanabe.

Over 44 days, these kids confined Junko to their basement and subjected her to numerous forms of se*ual assaults: beating, raping, sodomizing and inserting foreign objects such as iron bars, scissors skewers fireworks and even a lit light bulb into her vagina and anus.

What happened to Junko?

Junko Furuta was abducted by four teenage boys in November 1988 from her home and brought to a house owned by Nobuharu Minato’s parents in Adachi.

Once Junko arrived at their camp, she was held captive by three boys for 44 days until she died a horrendous death from tortures that left her broken beyond repair.

Her body was rapped over 400 times and subject to numerous other abusive treatments; these included being hit with golf clubs, bamboo sticks, iron rods and fireworks, having her eyelids burned with cigarettes lighters or hot wax, having her genital area burned with cigarettes or lighters; she endured all this before succumbing to countless assaults that ultimately rendered her so weak it took an hour for her to move from floor to floor of the house.

What were her captors doing to her?

Junko Furuta stood out among her peers with her high grades, her lack of smoking or drinking, and her shy nature that kept her away from crowds of people.

On November 25, 1988, she was riding her bicycle home from part-time work when Shinji Minato attacked her and threw her off of it, calling on another boy (Hiroshi Miyano).

She was told he was part of the Yakuza and threatened her family if she did not stop his behavior, before being taken to a warehouse where he sexually raped her.

After inviting two more of his friends (Jo Ogura and Shinji Minato), he proceeded to sexually abuse her for 44 days straight.

Junko endured inextricable torture and sexual assault during her time in captivity, including over 500 sexual encounters during captivity alone, starvation, beatings, firebombings, organ swellings that prevented proper urination and being starved to death. Her organs swelled so severely she was left unable to urinate efficiently.

What happened to her body?

Junko Furuta was a 17-year-old high school student when she was kidnapped, assaulted, and tortured for 44 days by multiple attackers. Over 100 men sexually assaulted her violently while forcing her to urinate on herself as punishment before starving her to death.

At one point, she even tried calling the police, but her call was abruptly disconnected by her kidnappers. Subsequently, they burned her legs with lighter fluid before setting her ablaze.

Junko’s body was eventually placed inside an oil drum mixed with concrete and dumped at Wakase Park – this incident still being hotly debated today in Japan.

At the time of Junko’s abduction, her killers were all teenagers, receiving only short prison terms due to suspected connections to Yakuza gangsters. Although their murder should have carried the death penalty, instead they were eventually released from incarceration and no longer face criminal justice issues.

What happened to her family?

Junko Furuta was an ambitious young woman from Misato, Saitama Prefecture who earned straight A’s at school and worked part-time as a plastic molding factory to support her family financially. After graduation she planned on embarking on a career in electronics.

Minato and Miyano abducted her while she was traveling home from work in Tokyo on December 1988, kidnapping and transporting her back to their residence where they brutalized and sexually abused her before forcing her back out into society.

Her wounds leaked pus, and she began smelling of decayed meat. Following two hours of beatings, she succumbed.

After her death, the four boys wrapped her body in blankets and placed it into a suitcase before disposing of it using a 55-US gallon drum containing wet concrete in Koto, Tokyo.

Her parents were devastated at what had occurred with their daughter. She was an academically focused student who never experimented with drugs or alcohol.