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, 17-year-old Junko Furuta (古田 順子 Furuta Junko), was murdered.

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, 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.

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 had bragged that he could use his yakuza connections to kill anyone who interfered.

According to their statements at their trial, the four of them raped her and tortured 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.

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. 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.

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.

In popular culture

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.

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.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Pai Hsiao-yen
• Hello Kitty murder
• Tsutomu Miyazaki

References

• "Torture and Murder in Tokyo". The Japan Times Weekly Overseas Edition. 1989-08-19. 

External links

• (Japanese) Court document | Translated court document
• Joshikôsei konkuriito-dume satsujin-jiken at the Internet Movie Database