Junko Furuta

Hajimemashte, I am John, Host of The Secret Sits and I love Japan, it is a country full of wonder, beauty and tradition. But today I am going to tell you a story from Japan, and it may be the darkest story I have ever told on this podcast.

Our story today is going to be difficult for some to hear, this story will contain graphic content with descriptions of rape and extreme physical abuse, please listen at your own discretion. 

We are looking for hometown True Crime stories for future episodes.  Please send your stories to us at: TheSecretSitsPodcast@gmail.com

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Transcript

[Underscore Music]

Hajimemashte, I am John, Host of The Secret Sits and I love Japan, it is a country full of wonder, beauty and tradition. But today I am going to tell you a story from Japan, and it may be the darkest story I have ever told on this podcast.

[Theme Music Start]

Welcome to The Secret Sits, I’m your host John Dodson.  Join us every Thursday as we uncover the Secrets behind the world’s most fascinating true crime cases.  You can find all episodes of The Secret Sits for free on Apple Podcast, Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts.  And if you like what you are hearing, reach out to us on Instagram and Facebook @The Secret Sits Podcast or on Twitter @SecretSitsPod. Now, on with our story.

[Theme Music Play Out]

[Under Score Music]

Our story today is going to be difficult for some to hear, this story will contain graphic content with descriptions of rape and extreme physical abuse, please listen at your own discretion.  

Our story today takes us back to one of my favorite countries to visit and to write about, the mystic land of the rising sun, Japan.  I have been studying my Japanese, but it is still a work in progress.  Although Japan as a whole is relatively crime free, even in large cities like Tokyo and Osaka, there are always those who will do anything they think they can get away with.  Especially if they have a layer of protection, because of who they are involved with.  Within Japan there exists a seedy underbelly that most people will never encounter, if you or I are randomly in Japan on vacation, or even working in the country for any stretch of time, we will most likely never see any crime take place, that is just the way it is in Japan.  

But there exists a term in Japanese, Yakuza and Yakuza refers to members of organized crime syndicates, the Japanese police and media call these groups of people, boryokudan, which means violent groups, but the members of these groups call themselves, ninkyo dantai, which loosely translated means chivalrous organizations.  You can already see the disparagement between the ideology from both sides.  The term Yakuza in English would be gangster or mobster.  The Yakuza have a strict code of conduct, they have an almost feudalistic nature and they continue practices such at yubitsume, this is an old Japanese ritual to atone for offenses one has made to another, it is a way to be punished or to show sincere apology and remorse to another, this ritual is done by amputating portions of one's own little finger.

Members of the Yakuza often have tattoos which cover their entire bodies, and tattoos in Japan, even today are very taboo.  The Yakuza are one of the wealthiest crime organizations in the world and they are feared in Japan, if one has cause to fear them.

Junko Furuta was born on January 18, 1971 in Misato; Misato is located in the extreme southeastern corner of the Saitama Prefecture. The Edogawa River runs along the eastern border of the city, the Naka River runs along the western border, and the Oba River meanders through the central part of the city. The town is approximately 12 miles from downtown Tokyo.  Here Furuta lived with her parents, and her two brothers, one was older than Furuta and one was younger. It was the winter of 1988 and Furuta was 17-years-old.  Futua was a bright and active student who was at the top her class, and she was a striking beauty, many people said that she looked like the idol talent Mariko Kurata, in Japan there is a whole culture around idols, these idols are primarily singers with training in acting, dancing, and modeling. Idols are monetized through merchandise and endorsement deals with talent agencies; these performers maintain a par asocial relationship with their loyal fan base.  Furuta had some sliver of a dream about becoming an idol herself and everyone said she had the looks to do it.  While Furuta attended Yashio-Minami High School she also had a part-time job that she would go to after her school hours.  This job was at a plastic molding factory, she had been working there since October of 1988, because Futura had decided to plan a fun graduation trip for herself and she needed to make some money to be able to pay for her trip.  Already planning for her bright future, Furuta had also lined up a new job for after graduation, she was going to work at an electronics store like K’s Denki, one of my favorite stores to walk around in while I am in Japan, think Best Buy in the United States.

On November 25th 1988 Furuta finished her shift at work and she was ready to head home, she walked outside into the cold air and she hurried over to her bike and she started on her way home.  Furuta was especially excited to get home tonight, because tonight was the finale of her favorite TV show, Tonbo, and we all know that feeling of excitement when our favorite TV show’s finale comes on.

At this same time a guy named Hiroshi Miyano, who was 18, arrived at his friend’s house, the second floor of this house is where the boys would usually hang out.  Shinji Minato was just 16-years-old and both of these boys were already known as chimpira which are low-ranking Japanese yakuza, who are often still quite young, and they are typically thought to be rude.  Hiroshi Miyano and Shinji Minato had not been good school boys, even at their young ages, they had already gotten into trouble for purse snatching, extortion and even rape.  

Miyano lived with his girlfriend, who was the older sister of one of his close friends and fellow chimpira, this boy’s name was Yasushi Watanabe.  Miyano was working as a tile worker in an effort to save enough money to marry this girlfriend. But tonight, Miyano and Minato were bored, so they decided to go wander around their town of Misato with their intentions set on robbing and perhaps raping some local women.  Shortly after 8:00PM Miyano spotted a young beautiful girl off in the distance and she was peddling her bike right in their direction.  Miyano looks at Minato and tells him that he is going to hide, Minato should stay there and when the girl gets close enough, he should kick her bike over and run away.  And with that, Miyano goes and hides in the shadows, waiting like a spider, for a victim to enter its web.  

Junko Furuta was making her way home, just as she did every night, the cold night air whisked by her as she peddled her bike, she was almost home and it was almost time to watch the finale of Tonbo. She was very excited.  And then suddenly, a boy appeared out of the darkness and Furuta was suddenly thrown to the ground, she was a bit stunned as she laid there in the gutter, her bike had been kicked out from under her and it now lay twisted on the street next to her.  But what had happened to the boy, he had fled into the night and Furuta could no longer see him.  Then out of nowhere another boy appeared, he seemed upset about what had just happened to this girl, he told her that he had witnessed the whole thing and then he helped the young girl up from the ground.  The boy introduces himself; his name is Miyano and he tells Furuta that it is dangerous in that area at that time of night and like a gentleman, Miyano offers to walk Furuta home.  The young girl, who was normally perfectly fine making this trip home each night was now a bit frazzled by this attack and so she accepts Miyano’s offer. Furuta and Miyano were not completely strangers to one another, they had attended the same school for some amount of time, but they did not know each other well.

The two youths are now walking toward Furuta’s home when Miyano changes the pair’s path of travel slightly and they end up at an empty warehouse, here Miyano drops his charming good boy act and he immediately rapes the young girl who had sought solace in his company just moments before.  When Miyano has finished, he tells Furuta that she is being targeted by the Yakuza, but he told her that he was an executive in the Yakuza, which was a lie, and he told her that he could intercede and save her life.  Miyano called a taxi and he and Furuta traveled in the taxi to a local hotel.  When the pair arrived at the hotel, they went to a hotel room and there Furuta was raped again by Miyano and he also threatened to kill her.  After this rape Miyano called his friend and accomplice Minato and bragged to him about his sexual conquests, the boy on the other end of the line asked Miyano to hold Furuta captative so he could join him in raping the girl, this pair along with some of their other unsavory friends had gang raped girls in the past and then let them go.  As a side note, rape in Japan is most often not reported.  So, they decide that he should come by the room around 11PM, and just before 11:00 o’clock Shinii Minato shows up and he has brought two more boys with him; Jo Ogua (17) and Yasushi Watanabe (17).  The four boys took their hostage to go for a walk around the city, as the quintet wondered through the city in the dark of night, Miyano would continue his threats against Furuta, as a car would drive toward them, he would react and shout, “hide, the yakuza car is coming” just to make the girl jump and maintain his fear-based hold on the girl.  Miyano was definitely the leader of this small group of chimpira and he had a history of more than problematic behavior.  In April of 1986 Miyano had been enrolled in a private high school in Tokyo, but he dropped out the following year, after leaving school he wadded deeper into the troubled waters of his youth and his crimes began to escalate.

The small group ended up in a local park, it was cold and dark out, the area of town was quiet and at this time of night, most of its residents were long asleep in their beds.  Miyano and Minato returned to the hotel to turn in the key to the room and while there, Miyano runs into a man he knows that owns a flower shop and the two begin having some drinks together, in the time when the two boys where gone back to the hotel, Furuta is still stuck outside in the park with Ogura and Watanabe and the three of them are all cold, so they decide to take Furuta to Shinji Minato’s home and to his upstairs room, the one they used as their hang out space.  During this time the boys had also riffled through Furuta’s belongings and in her backpack, they found a notebook which contained Furuta’s home address, the boys told her that they knew her home address and that the Yakuza would kill her family if she attempted to escape. Once the other two boys arrived at Minato’s house, the four boys gang-raped Furuta, and this room would be where they would keep their new sex slave, until she took her last breath.

Hiroshi Miyano was entering a convenience store when a man absentmindedly bumped into the young man, Miyano responded by pounding the man with his fists.  After this incident Miyano ran into two other boys he knew, Tetsuo Makumara and Koichi Ihara, he told the boys to come by Minato’s house after 11:00PM and he would show them a good time.  The boys arrived at the house, just as suggested and the walked up the stairs to Minato’s room, as they entered the room, they saw Furuta, she was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and a black skirt, this was a new outfit for her, which Miyano had stolen from a clothing store a couple of days earlier.  The boys began to get a bit loud and they woke Minato’s mother who proceeded to came up to the room to check what was happening, but the overhead fluorescent lights in Minato’s room were broken and the only light in the room was a standing floor lamp and the room was very dimly lit, Minato’s mother could not see if anything was truly amiss and she headed back to bed.

After his mother had headed back to bed, the boys decided that they wanted to feel high and so they drank some cough syrup, the boys over exaggerated the effects that this cough medicine had taken on them, they wanted to see what Furuta would do, if she thought the coast was clear.  And just as the boys began acting like they would pass out and they were fairly incapacitated by the cough syrup, Furuta jumped up and began screaming and trying to escape the room which had now become her prison.

The boys jumped up, revealing that they were not as intoxicated as they had pretended and Miyano grabbed Furuta by her legs and slammed her down to the ground, Ihara placed a pillow over the frantic girls face to muffle her screams of terror, now both of Minato’s parents were awoken and they ran up the stairs to check on the horrible noises which had startled them awake, Minato’s father said, “I heard a scream just now, what are you doing?”, but the boys told the older couple that the noise was nothing and that they should go back to bed.  After the couple went back downstairs and back to their room, the boys gang raped their female prisoner again.  During this rape, Junko Furuta was now in shock and she laid on the floor, unconscious in her mind, but her eyes remained open, unblinking as she stared at the ceiling, while these boys took their turns defiling her.  It was also at this time that Miyano began to inflict his torture on the girl.  As Furuta laid there on the ground after the boys had raped her, Miyano began flicking his lighter on and slightly burning Furuta’s genital area.  Miyano encouraged the other boys to participate in this action, but this made them a little nervous and they refused to participate, this entire time Furuta laid on the ground staring blankly at a spot on the ceiling. 

Miyano told his prisoner, “If you go home and call the police, even if we are caught there will be dozens of fellow Yakuza who will set fire to your house and kill your entire family, remember we are protecting you from Yakuza who are targeting you.”

Junko Furuta’s parents sat at home waiting on their daughter to return for two days before they contacted the Tokyo police to report her disappearance.  This report was taken on November 27th, 1988.  Hiroshi Miyano, was nervous that the police would begin searching for Furuta and so he forced her to call her parents and tell them that she had run away and that she was staying with some friends and that she was safe.  He made her repeat this phone call with the same information 3 times, and they also made the girl convince her parents that they should call off the police investigation.  Furuta’s father had even taken time off of work to scour the town looking for his only daughter.

Minato’s mother was in her kitchen when one day Furuta walked into the house, she told the woman that she would be staying there, but Minato’s mother told the girl that it was late and she should go home, but Furuta did not reply to the woman, she just walked past her and up the stairs to the room she was being kept in.  When Minato came down from his room, his father told him he had to return the girl to her home.  The next morning Minato told his father that the girl had left and without thinking too much about it, Minato’s parents believed their son.  A week after this, while Minato’s mother was cleaning the bathroom, she discovered female sanitary products which she knew were not hers, so she went upstairs to her son’s room and there she discovered the girl was still in her house, she said to the girl, I thought you had left and Furuta replied, no I am still here, she asked why the girl was there, but Furuta refused to answer.  Minato’s mother pressed the girl a little further and said to her, “I suppose there are good reasons to run away from home, and you don’t have to explain to me, but what is your name?”  Furuta once again, did not reply.

In the beginning of her life in captivity, Shinji Minato’s parents were aware that the girl was in their home and Minato made Furuta act as if she was his new girlfriend, Minato’s parents did not really believe their son’s explanation of who this girl was, but the couple were afraid of their delinquent son, and his possible connections to the Yakuza, so Minato’s parents said nothing about the girl being held in captivity right under their own roof.

The next morning Minato’s mother went up to her son’s room and there was the girl, also in the room were Jo Ogura and Tasushi Watanabe, she told the boys that they needed to leave her house, but the boys did not move.  The woman realized that the boys would not listen to her so she called her husband at work, to get the phone number to Ogura’s house and then she proceeded to go to Ogura’s grandmother’s house, which was very close to her own house, she wanted this woman’s help getting these boys and their female hostage, out of her house, but during her visit with the elderly woman, she could not bring herself to breech the subject with the woman and she left without saying anything about the horrors happening in her own house.  Minato’s parents were afraid that if what was happening in their house got out, it would ruin their reputation in the town.

After Minato’s mother returned home, her husband arrived just after and they went upstairs to the girl and tried to get her to stand up, but Furuta put no effort into the action, they began pulling the girl up by her arms and they told her, ok let’s go home now, but she would not move.  The couple went through her things and they found her home phone number, Minato’s mother then went to another house to barrow a phone, she was afraid of their son and she did not want him to find her calling anyone about the girl from their home.  She called Junko Furuta’s home and her mother answered, she asked her questions about her daughter, an attempt to figure out if she was the mother of the girl trapped in her upstairs room.  When Furuta’s mother asked who she was, Minato’s mother got nervous and hung up the phone.

When Minato’s mother arrived back at their house, Minato’s father had the girl in their Livingroom, downstairs and he was talking to her.  He had convinced the girl to home, she agreed and then the kind man asked her if she had taxi fare to get home, she said she could go on her own and that she was ok.  As Furuta walked out of the front door to finally go home, Ogura and Minato were outside waiting for her.  The boys walked her to a park and met Miyano so they could decide what to do with her next.  They decided to sneak the girl back into the house and then Minato beat his mother for several hours for her interference. The boys then broke the doorknob to Minato’s upstairs room, so that the door could only be opened from the inside.

This group of boys would hold Furuta captive in this room for the next 40 days, and during that time, she was subjected to heightened amounts of rape and torture.  The boys invited an unending string of men and other teenagers to come and rape the teenage girl.  During this time Furuta was raped over 500 times by up to 100 different men, on one particular day she was raped by 12 different men on the same day.  The four captors shaved Furuta’s pubic area and forced her to dance in front of them while nude, they also made the girl masturbate while they watched, and sometimes at night, during what can be miserably cold winters in Japan, they forced the girl to sleep outside on the small balcony with little to no clothing.  

The boys increased their torture of Furuta by inserting objects into her vagina and anus, including lit matches, bottles and a metal rod.  The boys force fed the girl large amounts of alcohol, milk and water, she was forced to chain smoke cigarettes and inhale paint thinner.  Miyano would pour Zippo lighter fluid from a bottle onto Furuta’s shins and legs, he would then light the girl’s skin on fire.  After the first 20 days in captivity, Furuta could no longer walk. As December came to a close, Furuta had been in this house, captive for over a month, she was extremally malnourished as the boys now only fed her milk and nothing else.  The burns on the girls’ legs had become infected and the blisters swelled and were filled with puss, because of these injuries Furuta was no longer strong enough to go downstairs to use the toilet.

Junko Furuta’s once idol worthy good looks had quickly melted away, because of the brutal attacks performed on the girl, her face had now swollen so much one could no longer see the girl who once inhabited this body.  The boys would lay Furuta face down on the concrete floor and they would jump and land on the back of her head, her face smashing into the floor.  This caused her face to swell and her sinuses filled with blood which would harden, making it so Furuta could no longer breath through her nose.  Her body was also no longer what it once was, the infected soars on her body were now giving off a smell of rotting flesh.  The boys used metal dumbbells to torture Furuta, holding them above her and letting them smash down onto her body, every bone in both of her hands had been broken.  After 30 days Furuta could no longer urinate and her bladder became infected.  The boys placed fireworks into every place in her body they could, her vagina, her anus, her mouth and her ears, both of her eardrums had exploded because of this and doctors think she was probably def toward the end.  Her anus had been mutilated on the inside, by these fireworks as well. Furuta laid on the ground and begged for her tormentors to end her life, but they did not.

All of this this made her 4 captures lose sexual interest in the girl.  Because the boys were no longer using Furuta to satisfy their vial sexual urges, they went out and found a different 19-year-old girl also on her way home from work and they gang raped this girl and then let her go.

One of the boys who had gone to Minato’s home and participated in the rape went home and bragged to his brother about it, this boy called the police and reported the crime.  Two Tokyo police officers were dispatched to the Minato home to investigate this claim, Minato’s mother answered the door when the police arrived, they asked the woman if there was a young girl being held in the house, Minato’s mother said, no, there is no girl here.  The police thanked the woman and left, and this ended their investigation into the claims of this crime.

On January 4th, 1989, now 40 days after the finale of Tonbo had aired, a show Furuta had never made it home to watch, her life would also come to an end.  Miyano came to the house where Furuta was being held and he was heated, he had lost a game of mahjong the previous night.  And he decided to use Furuta to vent his frustrations physically, he walked into the room and poured lighter fluid all over the girl, and then he struck a match.  Junko Furuta was ingulfed in flames and she made a vain attempt to save her own life and put the fire out, but Furuta slowly collapsed to the ground and stopped moving.  The fire did go out and Furuta was still clinging to life, it was at this point that the boys began punching the girl, they lit a candle and dripped the hot wax onto her swollen face and they forced the girl to drink her own urine.  Furuta was bleeding profusely and pus was spilling from her infected injuries, sustained during the past 40 days.  The smell of the burnt flesh and the exuding puss made the boys ill, so they covered their bare hands with disposable plastic bags and then they continued their assault, they dropped an iron exercise ball onto the girl’s stomach over and over, this vicious attack lasted nearly 2 solid hours until Junko Furuta finally succumbed to her wounds and died.

The boys wrapped the girl’s body in blankets and shoved her into a duffle bag and then they placed the girl into a 55-gallon metal drum. Miyano had obtained this metal drum from his old job at the tile company, when he went to get the barrel, the owner jokingly asked Miyano if he had killed anyone, Miyano did not respond to this comment.  The boys placed Furuta into the drum, it was if she was sitting in the barrel with her knees pulled up to her chest.  The boys mixed some wet concreate and poured it on top of the dead girl, incasing her in the stone as it set, only a small portion of her hair protruded from the solid cement tomb.  At 8:00PM the boys loaded the drum into a truck, they tried to dispose of the barrel in the nearby river but Minato objected to this because it was too close to his home, so the boys then decided to get rid of the barrel in the Tokyo Bay Landfill, so the boys drove there, but they could not find a suitable place to put it, after this they drove to Koto, Tokyo and just dumped the barrel into the grass on the side of the road.  Miyano found a videotape of the final episode of Tonbo, Furuta’s favorite show and he placed this tape into the drum with the girl.  This was not some last-minute penance for Miyano’s bad deeds, no, Miyano did this because he did not want Furuta to come back and haunt him as a yurei.  According to traditional Japanese beliefs, all humans have a spirit or soul called a reikon.  When a person dies, the reikon leaves the body and enters a form of purgatory, here the reikon waits for the proper funeral and post-funeral rights to be performed, this allows the reikon to join they ancestors.  If this is done correctly the reikon is believed to be a protector of the living family.  However, if the person dies a sudden or violent death, such as murder or suicide, and the funeral rights have not been performed, the reikon transforms in to a yurei which can then bridge the gap back to the physical world to seek revenge.  This is what frightened Miyano.

On January 23rd 1989, Miyano and Ogura were arrested for their participation in the gang rape of the 19-year-old girl back in December.  The one they had let go, unlike Furuta.  And then on March 29th, two Tokyo Police officers performed searches of these boys’ homes, the police found women’s underwear and they brought the boys in for questioning.  The police officer speaking to Miyano mentioned something about a murder and Miyano thought that the jig was up, they must have found out about Furuta’s murder and his culpability in this murder.  He honestly thought that Jo Ogura, who was being interviewed separately must have ratted them out and Miyano began confessing to all of the crimes he had perpetrated against Junko Fututa.  The police were very confused, they had been referring to the murder of a different woman along with her 7-year-old son, which had happened only days before Furuta had gone missing.  Miyano told the police where they could locate Furuta’s body and the next day the drum was found, still containing Furuta’s body.

Police had to use a truck with a crane attached to lift the barrel and transport it to be examined.  Police identified the body in the drum by using fingerprints.  Also inside of the drum was the video tape, this tape also contained home video of Furuta in captivity.  The examiner found sewing needles which had been shoved into the girl’s breasts, there were explosive wounds on her intestinal walls, they removed several small glass bottles from her rectum and her genitals, breasts and face had been completely destroyed and did not obtain any of their original shapes.  It was also discovered that during this time of rape and torture, Furuta had become pregnant by one of the dozens of men who had repeatedly raped her.  On April 1st, 1989, Jo Ogura was arrested on a separate sexual assault charge, he was also arrested for Furuta’s murder.  Next, police rounded up Watanabe, Minato and Minato’s brother.  Several other boys were also arrested and charged with the rape of Furuta after the medical examiner found their DNA inside of her body, this included Nakamura and Ihara.

The boy’s identities were sealed by the court because they were all juveniles at the time of the crime, and the Japanese press only referred to the male defendants as A, B, C and D, but journalists from the Shukan Bunshun magazine discovered the boys’ identities and published them, the magazine said that because the severity of the crimes were so unhuman, the boys did not deserve to have their anonymity upheld, they did not deserve human rights.  All four of the boys pled guilty to “committing bodily injury that resulted in death.”  They would not plead guilty to a murder charge.

In July of 1990 a lower court sentenced Hiroshi Miyano, the ring leader of this horrific crime, to 17 years in prison.  Miyano appealed his sentence and he appeared before the Tokyo High Court judge Ryuii Yanase, the judge did not grant Miyano’s appeal, but instead added 3 years to his prison sentence.  This 20-year prison sentence is the second-longest sentence ever given in Japan for a juvenile, other than people who have received life in prison.

Junko Furuta’s parents filed a civil suit against Miyano and his mother was forced to sell her family home to pay the $425,000 or 50 million yen which was ordered as compensation for his crimes.

Miyano was denied his bid for parole in 2004, and he was released from prison in 2009 after serving his sentence.  Just 4 years later in January 2013, Miyano was arrested again, this time for fraud.  But this case against the man did not hold up due to a lack of evidence and Miyano was released later that month.

Minato had received a sentence of 4-6 years in prison for his part in this case, he too appealed this sentence and when he also went before judge Ryuii Yanase, the judge once again, increased his sentence from 4-6 years to 5-9 years.  These people should learn their lesson and stop appealing these things.  Although these crimes had been performed in Minato’s family home, his parents and brother were not charged with any crimes. Minato’s brother lived in the adjacent room upstairs and he knew what was taking place, but he had never participated.  Furuta’s parents were once again dismayed at the light sentence given to Mianto and they filed a civil suite against the family because they allowed this incident to happen in their home.  After Minato was released from jail he moved back in with his mother and in 2018 Minato was arrested again, this time for attempted murder, he had beaten a 32-year-old man with a metal rod and attempted to slash his throat with a knife.

Yasushi Watanabe, who was originally sentenced to three to four years in prison, appealed his conviction and he received an upgraded sentence of five to seven years. He was 17 at the time of the murder. Watanabe is the only one out of the main four perpetrators, not to return to jail after his release.

For his role in the crime, Jō Ogura served eight years in a juvenile prison before he was released in August 1999. He was 17 at the time of the murder. After his release, he took the family name "Kamisaku" when he was adopted by a supporter of his. He is said to have boasted about his role in the kidnapping, rape and torture of Furuta. In July 2004, he was arrested for assaulting Takatoshi Isono, an acquaintance he thought his girlfriend may have been involved with. Ogura tracked Isono down, beat him, and shoved him into his truck.

Jō drove Isono from Adachi to his mother's bar in Misato, where he allegedly beat Isono for four hours. During that time, Ogura 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 assaulting Isono and has since been released. Ogura's mother is said to have viciously vandalized Furuta's grave, stating that she, the victim in this case, had ruined her son's life. It has also been reported that Ogura had depleted his father's savings, money which was intended to be provided as restitution to Furuta's family, buying and consuming a number of luxury goods.

Many believed that the sentences were too light for the severity of the crimes committed. And some speculated that they boys involvement with the Yakuza may have factored into this.

Junko Furuta's funeral was held on 2 April 1989. One of her friends' memorial addresses stated:

Jun-chan, welcome back. I have never imagined that we would see you again in this way. You must have been in so much pain...so much suffering... The happi we all made for the school festival looked really good on you. We will never forget you. I have heard that the principal has presented you with a graduation certificate. So, we graduated together—all of us. Jun-chan, there is no more pain, no more suffering. Please rest in peace...

At the funeral Furuta's intended future employer presented her parents with the uniform she would have worn in her new position she had accepted at the electronics store. The uniform was placed in her casket. At her graduation ceremony, Furuta's school principal posthumously presented Junko Furuta a high school diploma, with honors, which was given to her parents. The location near where Furuta's body was discovered has been developed since and is now a beautiful park next to the river. 

If you are still with me at this point, thank you, I know that today’s story was a difficult one to listen to.  As I said in the beginning, I love Japan and this story is in no way reflective of how this country operates, nor does it represent the loving people of Japan and how they go about their daily lives.  This was a story about the worst of the human race, and that could happen anywhere in the world.