Junko Furuta was a Japanese high school student who was abducted, tortured, and murdered in the late 1980s. The crime, which has become known as the "Concrete-encased high school girl murder case" or "Girl in the Concrete Drum," is considered one of the most heinous and gruesome in Japanese history.
Furuta was abducted on November 25, 1988 by four teenage boys who were members of a local yakuza gang. She was held captive in a small room in the house of one of the boys and subjected to a campaign of physical and psychological abuse that lasted 44 days. The boys took turns beating, raping, and torturing her, and forced her to eat live insects and drink her own urine. They also mutilated her body, breaking her fingers and burning her with cigarettes and lit matches.
Despite her repeated pleas for mercy and attempts to escape, Furuta was not released and died on January 4, 1989 from sepsis caused by the injuries she sustained during her captivity. Her killers were eventually caught and sentenced to prison, but the case generated outrage and shock in Japan and around the world for the sheer brutality of the crime. Furuta's death has been widely condemned as a horrific example of youth violence and a failure of the criminal justice system to protect vulnerable individuals.
The case received widespread media attention in Japan and abroad, and sparked a national conversation about youth crime and the need for stricter laws and harsher punishments for juvenile offenders. It also shed light on the problem of violence against women in Japan, and led to calls for greater awareness and prevention efforts. The memory of Junko Furuta and the circumstances of her death continue to be remembered and mourned by many, and her legacy lives on as a symbol of the devastating consequences of violence and abuse.