17 year old high school student junko furuta is grabbed on her way home from work by boys from her class for 44 agonizing days and nights she's held captive and tortured in a family home while the boy's parents go about their daily lives by the end death was a welcomed friend what you're about to hear is one of the most horrific murder cases in Japanese history foreign thank you for watching True Crime Recaps I'm Chris and I have to warn you of all the horrific Recaps we've shared this one is one of the most disturbing
for 44 harrowing days and nights junko was tortured violated beaten and dehumanized by a gang of teenage boys their ringleader 18 year old Hiroshi Miano went to class with her at yashio Minami High School in misato Japan the two of them were about the same age but they couldn't have been more different junko was your typical teenager she was among the most popular girls in school though she didn't party or cut class like some of the other girls she studied hard earned good grades and dreamed of becoming a singer and Dancer like the girls she
saw on TV meanwhile Hiroshi was a delinquent he'd fallen into a life of crime early on by the time his path crossed with junkos he was a low-level gangster in the Yakuza the notorious Japanese Mafia he had a reputation as a bully who flaunted his criminal connections to get what he wanted and he had a crush on junco unfortunately for him she wanted nothing to do with him telling people like Hiroshi no usually leads to a beating or worse but junka wasn't about to be bullied by some two-bit gangster twice a week junko clocked in
at her after-school job at a plastic molding Factory she and her friends were planning a big graduation trip and she wanted to save enough money to go all out she already had a job lined up in consumer electronics after the trip so she wanted to make the most of her last bit of Freedom before starting her full-time job meanwhile Hiroshi was building out his rap sheet it began with small Time Crimes like shoplifting and property damage he was dating his friend's sister and planned on Marrying the girl but Hiroshi didn't have enough money for a
wedding he took a job laying tile but it paid pennies compared to what he could make with the Yakuza so Hiroshi went all in dedicating his life to crime and violence he developed a taste for sex crimes with his friend and fellow gangster 16 year old Shinji monado it was November 25th 1988. junko had just gotten off work and was racing home on her bike she was excited to watch the series finale of her favorite show dragonfly her ride home took her through a park where Hiroshi and Shinji liked to hunt vulnerable women as junko
peddled down the path Shinji ran up and kicked her off her bike as junko lay there in shock Shinji fled that's when Hiroshi swooped in playing the role of the helpful bystander he offered to keep junko safe and walk her home junko having no real reason to be afraid of him agreed she never made it home and she never saw the end of dragonfly instead Hiroshi took her to an abandoned warehouse he dug through her bag and found a notebook with her address written down he said his Yakuza friends would kill her and her family
if she screamed or tried to run away Hiroshi took junko's virginity by force in that warehouse then he took her to a City Motel and violated her again while she lay there shaking and crying he called his buddies to brag about it but after listening to his story the guys pleaded with him not to let her go they wanted to join in so around 3 A.M Hiroshi met up with Shinji and two other friends Joe agura and yasushi guantanabe both 17 in a park where they took turns violating junko you'd think that would be enough
for them they had their Twisted fun now let the girl go instead they decided to keep her the four boys took junko to shinji's house about 15 minutes away from the safety of her own home Shinji lived with his parents and brother so he forced junko to act like his girlfriend whenever his parents were around but the charade didn't last very long it's hard to ignore a real-life horror movie playing out in front of you in your own home but that's exactly what xinji's parents did although later they claimed they were too afraid of the
boy's Yakuza connections to put an end to the torture meanwhile junco's parents were worried sick she always came home after work and she never missed an episode of dragonfly after searching the route she would have taken home and calling all her friends her parents called the police two days later to report her missing the boys knew they had to squash this they forced junko to call her mom and say she ran away she was safe at a friend's house but couldn't say where it took three long phone calls to convince Miss for Ruta to call
off the law even though she was surrounded by people jumko was utterly alone now the countdown had started on her final 42 days on Earth three days into captivity Hiroshi invited more friends to come over and take their turn the boys got high on cough medicine and went upstairs to shinji's room where junko was being held hostage when the door opened she tried to run away but the gang tackled her and held a pillow over her face to muffle her screams as you might expect shinji's parents woke up to check on the noise he told
them it was nothing they went back to bed Knowing damn well their son and his friends were gang raping this poor girl on the other side of the wall sources say junko stared blankly at the ceiling while they brutalized her the Minato home was a revolving door of gang members coming to have their way with junko one of the worst days saw 12 different men abuse her by the end of her captivity Reports say she was violated upwards of 400 times by 100 different men the attacks didn't end at rape either Hiroshi and his friends
tortured junko day in and day out the boys treated junko like a sexual science experiment they inserted dangerous objects into her anus and vagina including metal rods lit matches bottles fireworks scissors skewers and light bulbs their experiments destroyed junco's internal organs she couldn't use the bathroom and was forced to lay in her own waist her diet consisted of alcohol milk water and cigarettes sometimes they made her eat cockroaches and drink her own urine Hiroshi was the cruelest of all he'd doused her arms and legs with lighter fluid pour hot wax on her face put candles
on her eyes and burned her skin with lighters and cigarettes just to see what would happen by the end of December junko was so severely injured and malnourished she could hardly move off the floor at times they strung her body up and beat her with golf clubs bamboo sticks and iron rods her injuries quickly became infected pus leaked from her skin and she smelt like she was rotting From the Inside Out the boys lost sexual interest so they kidnapped and gang-raped a 19 year old woman luckily for her she escaped before suffering a similar fate
the police failed junko twice during her 44 day ordeal one of the boys Hiroshi invited over was so sickened by the scene that he told his older brother the brother told their parents and the parents called the police but when the police arrived at the monado household shinji's parents assured them that everything was fine there was no girl being held captive don't be ridiculous another time junko got her hands on a phone and called the police herself but before she could utter a word the boys grabbed the phone and dragged her away when the cop
showed up Shinji convinced them it was a mistake it wasn't like the boys were known as sweet kids in the neighborhood the police knew they were troublemakers and gang-affiliated yet they still took shinji's word as punishment for calling the cops the boys doused junko in lighter fluid and set her on fire junko was broken beaten and burned Beyond repair it said that blood had filled and hardened in her nasal cavity meaning she could only breathe through her mouth her stomach wouldn't accept water anymore she'd vomited up immediately January 4th 1989 was junko's last day on
Earth the story of her death revolves around a game of Mahjong some sources say junko beat them at the game but given how destroyed she was by that time the more likely version is that Hiroshi lost a hundred thousand yen gambling on Mahjong and took his frustration out on junco Hiroshi was so upset he covered her head to toe in lighter fluid and set her on fire junko tried desperately to put out the Flames but she was so weak she could hardly move it finally went out on its own leaving her horribly burned she went
limp and silent but the beating didn't stop she was bleeding profusely pus dripped from her infected wounds so they wrapped plastic bags around their fists to keep their hands clean while they punched and kicked her over and over again at one point they held her up only to kick her down when she fell she hit her head on a stereo system and went into spasms but still they didn't stop instead one of them picked up an exercise weight held it over their head and Let It Drop on her stomach the attack lasted two agonizing hours
until junco finally died from her injuries but the boys didn't realize she was dead they just thought she had passed out Hiroshi wrapped her legs in packing tape to keep her from running away and the Gang went to the sauna it wasn't until xinji's brother called that they realized junko was dead now the boys were truly afraid the legal system would likely go easy on them for rape and assault murder was a different story they wrapped her body in blankets and stuffed her in a 55-gallon drum before filling the barrel with concrete Hiroshi tossed in
a VHS copy of dragonfly's final episode he knew jumko had always regretted never seeing it but this wasn't some last act of kindness or pity Hiroshi just didn't want junko's Spirit to haunt him once the concrete hardened they put it on a truck and dumped it in a warehouse District in Tokyo the boys thought they had gotten away with murder but they wouldn't be free for long on January 23rd a few weeks after junko's death Hiroshi and Joe were arrested for the rape of that 19 year old girl while questioning Hiroshi the police mentioned an
unsolved murder case thinking Joe had confessed to junko's murder Hiroshi told them where to find the body the cops looked at each other as if to say what's this kid talking about but sure enough they located the cement barrel with junko's mutilated body inside by April all four boys were arrested for junko's kidnapping rape torture and murder you'd think a crime this heinous would land them in prison for the rest of their lives but you'd be wrong in 1980s Japan anybody under 20 years old was considered a minor junko and her Killers names and pictures
were supposed to be kept secret they were referred to in court documents and newspapers as a b c and d junco was e but her name and image eventually leaked the Press had a field day printing her horrifying story in every newspaper magazine but only one publication was brave enough to expose The Killers a publication called shukan bunchen decided to break protocol and publish the boy's names and pictures in the words of the editor-in-chief we decided that beasts don't have human rights but the courts thought differently instead of murder all four boys pled guilty to
causing bodily injury resulting in death as the ringleader Hiroshi got 20 years in prison the maximum sentence before a life sentence Joe agura got eight years in juvenile detention while xinji and yasushi got five to seven and five to nine years respectively shinji's parents and brother claimed ignorance and were never charged with the crime the light sentences left a horrible taste in everyone's mouth according to One Source junko's mother had a complete mental breakdown after hearing of her daughter's fate she had to be admitted to a psych ward junko's family did Sue xinji's parents and
won 50 million yen or about 370 000 US dollars people from across Japan flooded the prosecutor's office begging for the death penalty to them junco's case was a gross failing of Japanese juvenile law little did they know it was about to get worse Hiroshi Joe and Shinji were eventually released and quickly reoffended in 2018 Shinji was arrested for nearly beating a 32 year old man to death with a metal rod he slit the man's throat and left him to bleed out it said that Joe liked to brag about his role in junco's case in 2004
he was arrested for abducting and assaulting a guy he thought his girlfriend was fooling around with he threatened to kill the man saying I've killed before and I know how to get away with it you might say the Apple didn't fall far from the tree Joe's mother allegedly vandalized junko's grave claiming junko ruined her son's life Hiroshi got out of prison in 2009 and was arrested for fraud in 2013. however there wasn't enough evidence to hold him the initial goal of Japanese juvenile law is to rehabilitate young offenders that clearly didn't work in junko's case
more violent crimes with young offenders piled up like the Kobe child murders of 1997 when a 14 year old killed two other young boys the laws finally changed in 2000 lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 14. yet it didn't change how people felt about junco's case she lived in hell for at least 40 days and 40 nights most Reports say she endured that for as long as 44 days at her funeral her would-be employer gave her parents the uniform she would have worn her high school principal honored her at graduation presenting her
parents with junko's diploma wakasu park now sits over the area where her body was found in Japanese papers she's remembered as the Khan concrete encased high school girl murder case junko died just two weeks before her 18th birthday and that's your recap thanks for hanging out with us today if you like getting all the crime and half the time go ahead and tap that subscribe button and the Bell so you never miss a story we're here Wednesdays Saturdays and Sundays but don't go away catch up on more recap tabs right here right now until next
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