The Misery Machine - Junko Furuta Revisted: Japan's Most TRAGIC True Crime Case [GRAPHIC]

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

By popular listener suggestion, this week, Drewby and Yergy revisit the tragic case of Junko Furuta. She would have turned 50 years old this year. If you see something, say something. Like the cases of Sylvia Likens, Shanda Sharer, Suzanne Capper, and Kitty Genovese, we need to end bystander apathy. Resources: National Domestic Violence Hotline or 1 (800) 799-SAFE RAINN - Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network or 1 (800) 656-HOPE A very special thank you to Levi for supporting our show as our highest tier patron! Levi's Adoption Fundraising Page: https://gofund.me/d658a3a7 Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #themiserymachine #podcast #truecrime Source Material: https://www.buggedspace.com/44-days-of-hell-the-story-of-junko-furuta/ https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/true-crime/junko-furuta/ https://www.instagram.com/junkofuruta40/?hl=en https://japaninsides.com/44-days-of-hell-the-story-of-junko-furuta/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta https://www.tokyoreporter.com/japan-news/special-reports/junko-furuta-killer-again-on-trial-chaos-in-the-courtroom/ https://allthatsinteresting.com/junko-furuta

Hi, we're the Misery Machine. I'm Yerke. And I'm Drewby. And this week, by popular request, and because she would have turned 50 within the past couple months, we were revisiting the case of Junco Furuda. This case is probably one of the most graphic stories we've ever covered with, no, it is definitely the most graphic story we've ever covered. So listener discretion is definitely advised. And if you're listening to YouTube, please hit like and subscribe. We just passed 3,700 subscribers. Thank you so much to everyone that's helped. Thank you so much. It means a lot to us. It really does. Without further ado.

Remembering Junco Ferruda. Junco Feruto was born in Masato, Saitama Prefecture, which is a small bedroom community for commuters working in Tokyo. At less than 11 square miles, it's the type of place where you would think that everyone would know everyone and everyone else's business. But don't let its size fool you. Over 136,000 people reside in Masato.

As a teenager, she attended Yoshio Manami High School and lived with her parents, her elder brother, and her younger brother. There are conflicting accounts of her date of birth online. Some sources state January 18, 1971, while others claim that she was born on November 22, 1971. Either way, Junco was 17 years old at the time of our story, and by all accounts, was a wonderful young woman. Junco was everything a parent could want in a child. Unlike some of her classmates, she didn't drink, smoke, or do drugs. She was also a serious student in high school with high grades and very infrequent absences.

She was also an extremely hard worker as well. On top of her studies, Junco had been working part-time at a plastic molding factory twice a week since October of 1988. This was to help out her family and also to save up money for a graduation trip. Junco had just started a new job in an electronics store where she had planned on working after she graduated high school. also a very pretty teenage girl who enjoyed a lot of attention, and that made some of the people around her jealous. Hiroshi Miyano, the school bully, had a crush on Junco, but she was a busy girl and was not looking for a relationship, so she politely declined his advances. It was alleged that Miyano was involved with the Yakuza outside of the school. Yakuza is the Japanese mafia for those

who do not know. Miano was a violent person and was described as someone you didn't say no to. Nobody at school had the nerve to even oppose him. Unfortunately for Junco, this would be a fatal mistake. On November 25, 1988, Miyano and his friend Nobuharu Manado wandered aimlessly around the Masado area with a sick intention of robbing and assaulting local women. Around 8.30 that evening,

they spotted Junco biking home after her shift at her part-time job at the factory. At Miano's demand, Manado ran up to Junco and kicked her off of her bike and then fled the scene under the cover of night. Miano, under the false pretense of witnessing the attack by mere coincidence, approached Junco and played the gentleman, offering to walk her home safely and guard her from any further attacks.

Charmed and naive, Junco accepted her classmates' kind gesture, but was unfortunately blind to the fact that Mianna was leading her into a dangerous web that would cost her everything. Instead of being returned to the safety of her home and her loving family, Junco was brought to a nearby warehouse where Miyano attempted to intimidate her with his alleged Yakuza connections. It was there that he first raped Junco, and sadly again in a nearby hotel that he took her to, all the while threatening to kill her. Miano called Minato back and his other friends, Joe Ogura and Yasushi Wadonabe, and bragged to them about the rape. O'Gura allegedly pleaded with Miano to keep her trapped in order for the group to gang-rape her, which they apparently had a history of doing to other women,

having recently kidnapped and raped another girl who they thankfully released. If Junco cried out for help, nobody heard her, or were too apathetic to answer her, please. At around 3 o'clock the following morning, Miano took Junco to a nearby park, where Manado, Ogura, and Watanabe were waiting impatiently. The group had discovered her home address after they pillaged her belongings and located a notebook in her backpack. The group taunted Juncoe and told her they knew where she lived and that the Yakuza members would kill her family if she attempted to escape. Terrified and worried for her family's safety, Junco was helpless and easily overpowered by the four boys. Miano, Minato, Ogura, and Watanabe took her to a house in the Ayase district of Adachi and gang raped her repeatedly.

The house, which was owned by Manado's parents, soon became their regular gang hangout in Junco's prison. Junco's parents contacted the police on November 27, 1988 regarding her disappearance, as this was unlike their daughter to just up and vanish. To discourage further investigation to her kidnapping, imprisonment, and subsequent rape, the gang forced Junco to call her mother and falsely state that she had run away with a friend and that she was happy. The gang also forced her to tell her parents to stop the police investigation, which they unfortunately did, and this unknowingly sealed their daughter's fate.

As we mentioned earlier, Junco was being held captive in a house owned by the Manato family. So how did the gang manage to get away with these terrible acts? Well, when Manato's parents were home, Junco was forced to play the part of Manato's girlfriend. However, they dropped this charade when it became obvious, that Manado's parents would not report them to the police. I'm sure you're asking yourself how a family could simply allow a young woman to be held captive in their family home, clearly being assaulted day after day.

Well, the Monadoes stated that they did not intervene because they were aware of Miyano's alleged Yakuza connections and feared retaliation. They also claimed that their own son had become increasingly violent towards them. Manado's brother was also aware of what was taking place under their roof but did nothing to save Junco. You can be the judge of the sincerity of the family statements. Junco was held captive in the Monado home for 40 days, and each day was nothing short of living in hell. No longer were her tormentors just Miyano, Minado, Ogura, and Wadanabe. The gang had grown to possibly more than 100 men. Some of these were friends of Junco's four captors, and some allegedly connected to the Yakuza.

She was humiliated by being kept naked most of the time, and at one point, Junco was raped by 12 different men in one single day. So I just want to warn everyone before I get started, this is where the torture starts to get really awful. So according to trial statements, Miano, Manado, Ogura, and Watanabe raped Junco over 400 times, beat her, starved her, hung her from the ceiling, and used her as a punching bag, dropped barbells onto her stomach. Do you mean to keep me to take over? No. Forced her to eat live cockroaches and drink her own urine.

Forced her to masturbate in front of them. Forced her to dance and sing songs while being beaten. They inserted many objects into her vagina, rectum, and anus, including lit light bulbs, scissors, iron bars, wooden skewers of chicken, and even lit fireworks inside of her. They burned her vagina and clitoris with cigarettes and lighters and her eyelids with hot wax. They also tore off her left nipple with pliers and pierced her breasts with sewing needles. Junco would reportedly slip into unconsciousness due to shock because of the repeated abuse, leading the gang to dunk her head into a bucket of ice water to revive her each time and continue the torture.

Some of the reported 100 Yakuza-connected men that participated in the gang rape and torture of Junco Furuda have been officially identified, including Tetsuo Nakamura and Koichi Ihara, who were charged with rape after their DNA was found. Ihara claimed he was bullied into raping Junco and stated that after he left the Minato home where she was, was being held captive, he told his brother about the incident. His brother subsequently told their parents, and they then contacted the police. Finally, someone was doing something, and two police officers were dispatched to the Monado home. However, upon arrival, they were informed that there was no girl inside. Shockingly, officers declined an invitation to search the grounds, believing

the invitation alone was sufficient proof that Junco was not inside and that a false report had been filed. They apologized for the trouble and went about their day. Both officers face considerable backlash from the community. Had they indeed searched the house and located Junco, her ordeal, although already hellish enough, would have lasted 16 days and she may very well have recovered from her injuries and survived. Quite similar to the story of 14-year-old Conorax and Thassamphone, who escaped the clutches of Jeffrey Dahmer only for police to allow him to be taken back into captivity, sealing his fate. Thankfully, the two officers were fired for failing to follow procedure, although it does make one wonder if they should have faced charges as well.

This wouldn't have been the first time, however, that the police failed Junco. At the beginning of December, Junco attempted to call the police. However, she was discovered by Miyano before she could say anything, and he took the phone away from her and hung it up. When the police called back, Miano informed them that the original emergency call was a mistake and told them not to worry. No follow-up wellness check was ever done to verify this claim. As punishment, Junco's captors doused her legs and feet in lighter fluid and set them on fire. They also pushed a large bottle into her anus causing severe internal bleeding, causing Junco to convulse.

Believing that she was faking a seizure, they set her ablaze once more. Tragically, Junco was reported to have asked her captors on multiple occasions to kill her and get it over with, but they refused. Instead, they forced her to sleep outside on the balcony during the winter and frigid temperatures and locked her in a freezer. Her hands and legs were so badly damaged that it took Junco over an hour to drag herself downstairs to the bathroom. Due to the severity of the torture, she eventually lost bladder and bowel control and was subsequently beaten for urinating and defecated on the floor. She was also unable to drink water or consume food and would vomit after each attempt, for which she received further beatings. All the while, no one in the Miyano home did anything or come to her aid.

Junco's face was so swollen due to the sheer brutality of the repeated beatings that it was difficult to make out her features. Some reports state that her cheeks were so badly swollen that they were raised past her nose, and that her eyes were swollen shut. Her body was battered and broken, and her infected burn wounds emitted a strong, rotting smell that disgusted the gang, and by their claims, it caused them to lose sexual interest. in her. As a result, the boys kidnapped and gang raped a 19-year-old woman who, like Junco Faruda, was on her way home from work. Unable to control his emotions after losing a game of Mahjong, Hiroshi Miano decided to vent his anchor out on Junco. So this has been talked about,

there's this belief that Junco was the one who played him in Majong, and I believe it was depicted in one of the movies. There are other sources disputing this, and I don't believe that Junco was in any state at this point to be doing anything. And what really had happened is he was out gambling, playing Mahjong for money with others, and came home and decided to take it out on her. Because it was at this point, January 4th, 1989, she was barely hanging on by a thread, because she had suffered a month's worth of torture at this point. The gang proceeded to beat Junco with an iron barbell, kicked and punched her already broken body and placed two short candles on her eyelids, burning them with hot wax. They made her stand, although it was nearly impossible for her to muster

the strength to do so, and struck her feet repeatedly with a wooden rod. Junco fell onto a stereo system and collapsed into a fit of convulsions, which set the boys into a rage. She was bleeding profusely and pus was seeping from the badly infected burns that covered her body. The four boys covered their hands in plastic bags so that the noxious fluids wouldn't get on their hands and they continued beating her. They dropped an iron exercise ball on her stomach several times.

They poured lighter fluid onto her thighs, arms, face and stomach once again and set her ablaze. Fighting to her very last moments, Junco allegedly made attempts to put out the fire but gradually became unresponsive. And after being

brutalized for two hours, Junco Furuda succumbed to her wounds and died. Afraid of being arrested for murder, the gang of boys wrapped Junco's lifeless body and blankets and stuffed her into a travel bag, and then into a 55-gallon drum and filled it with wet concrete. Around 8 p.m. that evening,

less than 24 hours after Junco had died, the gang disposed of the drum by loading it into a cement truck in Koto, Tokyo. Less than a month later, on January 23, 1989, Hiroshi Miano and Joe O'Guro were arrested for the gang rape of a 19-year-old woman which they had kidnapped in December. Two police officers came to interrogate the two on March 29th after women's underwear had been found at their addresses. However, it is unclear why over two months had passed between the arrest and this interrogation, and it is unknown who found and reported it.

During the interrogation, one of the officers led Miano to believe that police were aware of a murder he had committed, and thinking that Ogora had to confess to the crimes against Junco, Miyano broke down and told them everything and provided details as to where they could find her body. The police were puzzled by the confession, as they had been referring to the murder of a different woman and her seven-year-old son that had occurred nine days prior to Junco's abduction in November. That case remains unsolved to this day, unfortunately.

On April 1, 1989, Ogura was arrested for an unrelated sexual assault and subsequently arrested for Junco's murder. The arrest of Watanabe, Manado, and Monado's brother followed. It is worth noting that the police could not connect the dots that something was amiss without the boy's confession. Given the rape they were arrested for, the unrelated double homicide they were suspected of, and the previous emergency calls made to and from the Monado residence. It is just another example how law enforcement failed Junco.

Through Miano's confession, the police found the police found the drum containing her body the following day. She was identified via fingerprints as her body was badly damaged and decomposed. After examination, it was found that empty bottles of Orinam and C, a type of carbonated beverage, had been inserted into her anus, and her face was unrecognizable. Despite the extreme mutilation to her genitals and womb, Junco had become pregnant from the repeated rapes. Her official cause of death was listed as traumatic sharp. Junco Feruta's funeral was held on April 2nd, 1989. One of her friend's memorial address stated,

June Chan, welcome back. I've never dreamt that we would see you again in this way. You must have been in so much pain, so much suffering. The happy we made for the school festival looked really good on you. We will never forget you. I have heard the headmaster has presented you with a graduation certificate, so we graduated together, all of us. June Chan, there is no more.

pain. No more suffering. Please rest in peace. The electronic store where Junco intended to work after graduation presented her parents with the uniform she would have worn in the position she had accepted. The uniform was folded and placed lovingly in her casket. At her graduation, Junco's school principal presented her with a high school diploma, which was accepted by her parents on their white daughter's behalf. The location where Junco's body was finally recovered has since been developed and is now Waukasu Park, which was intended to be the location of the sailing events for the now-posed 2020 Summer Olympics. The identities of the boys were sealed by the court, as they were all considered

to be juveniles at the time of the crime. Journalists discovered the identities, however, and published them, as they should have. They stated that, given the severity and sheer brutality of the crime, the accused did not deserve to have their right to remain anonymous upheld. All four boys pled guilty to committing bodily injury that resulted in death rather than murder. In July of 1990, a lower court sentenced Hiroshi Miano, the ringleader, to 17 years in prison. He appealed his sentence, causing the Tokyo High Court to sentence him to an additional three years. He was 18 at the time of the murder. Miano's mother reportedly paid 50 million yen in compensation to Junco's family,

by the civil court after they sold their family home. Miano was denied parole in 2004, but was later released at the completion of his sentence. In January of 2013, Miano was re-arrested for fraud. Due to insufficient evidence, he was released without charges that same month. Nobuharo Manato, who originally received a four to six-year sentence, was resentenced to five to nine years upon appeal. He was 16 at the time of the murder. Manado's parents and brother were not charged, although their inaction directly caused Junco's death.

Junco's parents were dismayed by the sentences, received by their daughter's killers, and won a civil suit against the parents of Manato, in whose home the crimes were committed. After his release, Manano moved in with his mother, and in 2018, Manado was arrested again for the attempted murder and beating of a 32-year-old man with a metal rod after slashing his throat with a knife. Yasushi Watanabe, who was originally sentenced to three to four years in prison, received an upgraded sentence of five to seven years. He was 17 at the time of the murder. Joe Agora served eight years in a juvenile prison before he was released in August of 1999. He was 17 at the time of the murder. After his release, he is said to have bragged about his role in the kidnapping, rape, and torture of Junco Furuda. In July of 2004, he was arrested for assaulting Takatoshi Asona.

a man he thought his girlfriend may have been having an affair with. O'Gura tracked Asono down, beat him, and shoved him into his truck. He drove him from Adachi to his mother's bar and Masado, where he allegedly beat Asono for four hours. During that time, Ogora repeatedly threatened to kill the man, telling him that he had killed before and knew how to get away with it. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for the assault on his sono and his sense been released. O'Gura's mother allegedly vandalized Junco's grave, stating that she had ruined her son's life.

It has also been reported that Agura had squandered his father's savings, which was money that was intended to be provided as restitution to Junco's family. Instead, he blew it on a number of luxury goods. During sentencing, the judge noted that exceptionally grave and atrocious violence had been inflicted upon the victim, and that Junco had been murdered so brutally at the young age of 17 that her soul must be wandering in torment. Upon hearing the details of the brutal rape and torture, a spectator in the gallery fainted. Junco's mother also allegedly had a mental breakdown which required hospitalization. The sentences were largely regarded as being far too light for the crimes committed, and all four boys were protected by special provisions applied to individuals 18 years old and younger.

A lot of people wonder why the boys weren't. weren't hung for their crimes. This is why the death penalty was off the table. Three of Junco's four original tormentors have since changed their names. Hiroshi Miyano is now Hiroshi Yokoyama. Jo Ogura is now Joe Kamisaku. And Nobuharu Manato is now Shinji Manato. Junco Feruto would have turned 50 years old this year.

Although many reports refer to her case as the 44 Days of Hell, If you do the math, Junco endured 40 days of suffering at the hands of her captors. Not that this discrepancy discounts the cruelty she endured in any way. The crimes committed against her were more than infuriating and should serve a lesson to all of us. These things are happening every day in cities and towns, much like your own, behind closed doors, and should never happen again. Bystander apathy is unacceptable. Think of what happened to Kitty Genevice and Sylvia Likins in decades prior. These young women were robbed of life and will never get to know their full potential because they're gone forever.

We as a human race have an obligation to all creatures, big and small, to do the right thing. If you see something unsettling, if you suspect abuse, say something. You can be the voice for those without one. Both human and animal. You could save a life. do it for Junco we owe it to her after a case like this I'm not going to spend too much time

promoting ourselves but if you did like this video and you support what we're doing please hit the like and subscribe button subscribe to us in any platform you're listening to if you want to go the extra step to support us patreon.com slash the misery machine and I do want to thank our patrons Eddie Rowan Markey Holly

Ashley Vu Anna Laurenne Serena Chloe Mark Tara Sophie Karen with an EA Neil and Karen Dave and Carina Madison Domain list, Jen, Mo, Jenny, and Levi, our highest tier supporting patron. I do want to say something about Levi. Levi has a GoFundMe. He and his partner are trying to adopt a child and they need to raise money for that. We will have the GoFundMe in the description on the YouTube platform as well as the podcast platforms. If you could even donate even a little bit of money, it would mean the world to us

and to Levi. Levi's been an amazing supporter of our work, and I think it's time we need to help him out was something really important to him. Yes, absolutely. One last thing, I saw this thread on Reddit previously, and I've had people leave us comments or send us messages saying they were so moved by this case. And if they wanted to make a donation or do something about it, what should they do? And I think the best thing you can do this, if you feel so moved to donate to a cause is probably a battered women's shelter in your area. I would think so too. I'll put a few resources in the comment section for that as well. But, you know, just definitely seek out what you have locally. More than likely the organization is in need in some way, whether it's money or supplies. The one thing that we can all

do is speak up, speak up if we think something's going on. If we can end bystander apathy, that's going to be a huge help and that won't cost any money at all. But until next week, we love you. Bye. Bye-bye.