#366: The Korean “Junko Furuta” Case - 26 Days Of Torture, SA, Then Sealed In Concrete
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Orchards are not fun at night. The rows and rows of trees, the fruit trees, with the twisty little branches and the green leaves, those are all pretty during the day. But at night, everything is dark. Everything is gray. The rustling of the leaves, it no longer feels like a nice sunny breezy day. It sounds like somebody is hiding behind a tree watching you. The cute little twisty branches, they're now creating these eerie shadows on the ground. It feels like a maze from a horror movie.

Standing in the middle of an orchard are a group of high schoolers and young 20-something year olds. A few of them are 24, 25, but a lot of them are 14, 15 years old. They're huddled in a circle and there's nobody else in this orchard but them, which makes sense because why would anyone else be in an orchard at 3 in the morning?

What was that? Is somebody here? Focus. They have to focus. Right now is not the time to get distracted. Nobody's here. Why would anybody be here? They need to hurry if this is actually going to work right now. They cannot get caught. That is the only rule that they agreed upon before coming out here together again.

A few of them, they still need to graduate high school. One of them still needs to graduate middle school. If they get caught tonight, all of that, it's over. They cannot fail. What did Kim say? Kim said, you just mix these two together and it'll work out perfect. He said it's the perfect mixture. There's no reason for it not to work. I mean, it has to work, right? Hurry, just start pouring it in.

They kick their shovels to the side and start pouring in the mixture down into this massive hole that they dug up in the ground. They have to hurry. They're starting to get hungry.

They pour the sludgy gray cement mixture until it covers what's buried. First, they completely cover a hand, five fingers. Then it's connected to an arm and they start pouring the concrete on the arm, then the torso. And then finally, the face. The face of the 15-year-old girl that they held captive for over a month and tortured.

When they're done, they all leave. They head back to their cars with their little shovels. And honestly, they feel good because they freaking did it. They're going to get away with it. That's how they feel at least. But don't they know? History always repeats itself. And a very, very similar case took place 26 years ago in Japan. The case of Junko Furuda.

The case of Junko Furuda is one of the most gruesome cases of sadistic torture we've ever covered, and it was all committed by teenagers. I think if you've ever kept up with true crime cases at any point, Junko's case would have been one that you've absolutely come across. And today, we are covering the Korean version of it. This is the case that everyone in Korea has been calling the Korean Junko case. ♪

We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango to support the NAMI Network. With an impressive international reach and a heavy presence in Asian countries, this nonprofit provides life-changing opportunities for survivors of sexual trafficking by providing workforce and life skills for the women and victims that they serve. This episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support Rotten Mango's growing team, and we would like to thank our listeners for your continued support as we work on our mission to be worthy advocates.

As always, full show notes are available at rottenmingopodcast.com. A few massive disclaimers before we get started. There's going to be a lot of warnings for today's video. There are heavy descriptions of sex trafficking, SA, CSA, and graphic descriptions of torture, physical and psychological torture. It's a lot. If that is a lot for you today, please go take care of yourself and I will see you in the next one.

Many names have also been changed for anonymity and also because many identities have been not released. They've been protected by the law. A few statements have been condensed for time and we had our professional translators help us with the gathering of the facts of this case. But if there is anything at all that is mistranslated, miscommunicated, or anything we didn't include, please let us know down in the comments. So with that being said, let's get started.

The best way to drink soju is on the floor. I mean, there's just something about it that usually hits better. You get all of your friends in a circle, you get bottles of soju, which is hard liquor, you get cup ramen, snacks, and you sit in this circle on the floor playing drinking games. I think it's nice because you only do that when you're younger and it's always this memory. In South Korea, a mix of high school girls and college-aged boys...

yes, very alarming, are sitting in the motel room on the floor drinking soju.

At first glance, if you were to just peek inside this room, it looks like they're playing drinking games. And maybe that's why one of the girls is more drunk than the others. Typically in Korean drinking games, it is slightly unfair because if you lose the first few rounds, you have to take a shot of soju every time you lose the game. But if you're already drinking soju, you're likely to lose the next round of games. So then you end up drinking more, more rapidly than everybody else.

So that results in some people being way more drunk than the others. But usually everybody catches up by the end of the night. That is not the case here. The energy in this motel room is not normal. The group of seven, there's seven of them, they're joking around.

They're having fun. They're engaged. And then one of them, the eighth one, the very drunk girl, Yuna, she's kind of sitting off to the side, crouched down with her hair in her face. It looks like she's being forced to be there. Like she just wants to go lay down, but for some reason they're not letting her or for some reason she can't leave. Nobody is even engaging with her. But every once in a while, they'll grab an empty cold noodle bowl, a naengmyeon bowl,

fill it to the brim. These are big bowls. Think of like a pasta dish. They'll fill it to the brim with alcohol, about two bottles of soju. They put it on the floor right in front of Yuna. Drink it. She will have to bend down and drink the entire bowl. They will not let her stop. To give you an idea, soju typically has an alcohol by volume of 20%, which is

about half a vodka but it's still strong enough that most people will take shots of soju it's not like beer or wine where you just get like a nice big glass of it and drink it it's a spirit you take shots you mix it with something else or you sip it really really slowly you do not ever chug two bottles of it that would be like getting eight shots of vodka pouring it into a single drinking glass and then chugging it like a glass of water you're not gonna have a good time

The minute that the two bottles of soju goes down Yuna's throat and into her stomach, it comes right back up.

She throws it right back up all over the floor. The teenagers around her are a mix of disgusted and also kind of intrigued about what's going to happen next. Because she's not supposed to throw up. I mean, she probably would throw up, but she's not allowed to throw up. The guy sitting next to Yuna smirks. And for a moment, it's quiet until he grabs her by the back of the head, shoves her face into her own vomit. Eat it.

Yuna is the group's plaything, and just like Junko Furuta, she will be held captive and tortured for a month straight by teenagers her age. Do you think history repeats itself? I feel like that's a big question people like to ask.

And if it doesn't, then how does the same crime happen 26 years apart from each other? It's not even the same in terms of, oh, it's both a case of kidnapping, sadistic essay, torture and murder. But the cases feel eerily similar down to how the perpetrators are caught, how the victims try to escape, how they're lit on fire. Everything feels similar.

Two girls, two different countries, 26 years apart, held captive, tortured in very creepy, similar ways. Was it inspired by the first case? It doesn't seem like it. So just evil repeats itself. Yes, because I imagine if it did, it would have come about like, oh, this person was obsessed with these types of dark cases. They had a fascination for serial killers. You know how it always comes out. They had a journal where they wrote Richard Ramirez, heart killer.

Nothing. Both cases, the case of Junko Furuda in Japan in 1988 and the case of Yuna in South Korea in 2014, both cases start with a kidnapping from a helpful hand. Someone that they believe is going to help them. But there is this saying, better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

Japan, 1988. 17-year-old Junko is rubbing her bruised knee. She's laying kind of awkwardly in a ditch on the side of the road. Her bike is practically on top of her at this point. It's 8.30 p.m. It's not the most optimal time to get injured alone. Junko looks up. She's frustrated. She was riding her bike home from her part-time job when this random 15-year-old boy comes up to her out of nowhere, completely unprovoked, and kicks the side of her bike.

She and her bike go flying off the road into this ditch and now she's rubbing her slightly bloody knees.

She's dusting the dirt off her legs when this figure walks up to her. Another boy, maybe a little older, perhaps 18. He offers to help her up. That guy is famous around here. The one that kicked you? He's a pervert. He once threatened me with a knife, you know? Come on, let's get you up. I can escort you home if you'd like. I'm sure he's still somewhere around here. It's a split-second decision. Do you risk being alone and vulnerable to the bike-kicking pervert to come back and get you? Or...

Or do you take the helping hand hoping it's someone safer? The possibility that the two of them planned for this to happen probably does not cross your mind. Oh, it was pre-planned? Pre-planned. They're friends. Whoa. As Junko and the helping hand are walking towards her house, they pass by one of those abandoned warehouses and suddenly this guy's attitude completely switches. You know I'm a Yakuza member, right? It's like the mafia but in Japan.

This is our whole thing. We kill you by faking an accident. We hit you with a car. But I can forgive you if you offer yourself to me.

He drags Junko into the abandoned warehouse and essays her. But when he's done, he is sitting next to her. She's very panicked and he tries to convince her. Actually, there's more. The Yukuza still wants to kill you. But because you look kind of like my girlfriend, I feel a little bit of sympathy for you. I want to let you live. I can talk to my superiors and ask them not to kill you. But you have to stay with me for maybe the weekend?

He leaves to call two of his friends and he tells them, "I've captured a woman. Do you guys want to eat together?" That night, him and his three friends would take turns gang essaying her and they would invite more friends over and soon the torture would begin. They decide why let this girl go? Why let her go home when they can keep her captive and make her their little personal plaything? Junko would be kidnapped by what was supposed to be a helping hand.

South Korea 2014. A guy named Kim is sitting at his desk texting his girlfriend Yuna. He's comforting her. Yuna is, to put it nicely, she's going through it. Her home life isn't the best. Her mom was an alcoholic. Her

Her parents are divorced. She's living alone with her dad. But they were never really that close to begin with. So they're always kind of a little awkward. The house is quiet. Yuna could probably benefit at this point from some stability. But instead, her dad picked up all their bags, moved to a completely different city where she has no friends, no connections. And she doesn't even speak that city's dialect, which results in her new high school friends bullying her relentlessly. Another girl from the school would say...

Some of the bully girls didn't like Yuna because she was quiet. She kept to herself. She didn't try too hard to make friends. She also had a pretty face and I guess the bullies did not like that. She's like what 15, 16? She is 15. She would text Kim, her boyfriend. I don't like school. I don't like my dad. I hate everything. Kim debates on how to respond to something like that and he settles with, then just leave. What? Are you suggesting I run away right now?

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you can leave and get some fresh air. 바람세, which means truly get some fresh air. It's obvious you're not going to feel better when you're stuck at home with your dad. I guess that's true. So then does that mean you're going to stay with me? Kim hesitates again before he starts clicking away on his phone. The text reads, of course, I have a car so I can drive you around. We can go grab some yummy food, have fun and just relax. Then I can drop you back off at home.

I don't know. I feel like my dad's gonna be really worried. Well, if you ever do, just call me. Your dad will understand if you just tell him you're gonna hang out with friends. I did all of that too when I was your age. Kim is 24. She's 15. I did that too when I was your age. You trust me, right? Yuna responds, of course I trust you. Thank you. I always feel better when we talk. Kim responds, good. I'm glad I can help. Ah, I can't wait to meet you in person. What about tomorrow?

They haven't met or they've never met they met online. It's 2014 Kim is anxious because what if you know doesn't want to meet with him or she's not ready for a serious relationship Maybe he's coming on too strong. Maybe it's too quick He's tapping his feet anxiously waiting for a response and it finally comes in. Yeah. See you tomorrow

Kim turns to his side where a guy friend of his is standing, nodding his head. Fuck yeah. They high five, then they turn around to the two girls sitting on the bed. I told you he could get her to meet. The girls giggle. And now the only question is, how much do you think Yuna is going to go for?

Yuna's boyfriend, Kim, helps her with her little suitcase, gives her a helping hand up the steps. She's glancing around like, this is where you live? They're walking into a very shady looking motel in a rough neighborhood, which she's not trying to judge, but it's just, I guess it's just not what she expected. When you're 15, you think a 24 year old is a full grown adult and they have their own house. In this economy, that's not true, but you get it. And he reassures her, it's just temporary. He swipes his card on the door and lets her in first.

Once she steps into the motel room, Yuna likely has a gut feeling to U-turn it right out of there and go back home. The motel room is filled with people. In one singular motel room, there are now 7 plus Kim plus Yuna. There's 9 people. He never mentioned having a roommate or that there was going to be other people around them. I mean, not that anything is wrong with that, but again, it's just nothing what she was expecting, right?

There's three guys in their 20s, 24 and 25 years old, and a few girls that are her age, 14 and 15 years old.

A whole group of seven people in this motel room, what is going on? Kim turns to her and explains, they're kind of like us. We call ourselves the runaway family. We're all just helping each other out while we can. Yuna expresses, maybe this wasn't the best idea. Maybe I could just go home and I'll be back and it'll be great when I get back and maybe now's not the time.

But they block her from leaving. The girls her age start pleading with her. Come on, it'll be fun. You can just stay here for a few days. Just kill time and then go home. You know, if you go home now, your dad is going to freak out that you ran away and he's probably going to beat you up and shave your head.

Because that is a very common threat in Korean households that they're going to shave your head. It's typically reserved for daughters because I guess they think that you're having too much fun getting attention and going outside. So they threaten to shave your head. I think it's toxic. I don't think it's normal or okay. But I don't know how many people actually follow through with it.

But if you go home in a week, he's gonna have missed you so much. He would have been so worried and so stressed. He's not even gonna be mad. That's how it always is. It always works for us. Trust us. Do you want to get your head shaved and lose your phone? Or do you want to go home the king of the house? It was a question, but it didn't really feel like a question. It didn't really feel like a choice. So Yuna ends up staying with the runaway family. And they were right. Just like they said they would be.

Of course they were. Two weeks later, Yuna is standing in front of her home door. It's open. I mean, she has no idea how her dad is going to react after seeing her for the first time in two weeks since she ran away. Instead of being upset, her dad slams into her, hugging her so tight that she can't even breathe. He's so happy to see her that he doesn't even notice that Yuna is fidgeting. She's barely making eye contact with him. She's even hesitating to step inside their apartment.

it's not until they get inside, he realizes, oh, something is weird. Something is off about my daughter. He would later state, you know those stories where they say like if a clone replaced your loved one? That's what I think he was trying to say the feeling was. How would you know? Because this looks like Yuna, talks like Yuna, remembers the same thing as Yuna does, but this doesn't feel like his daughter. It feels like something happened and made her a different person.

She's sitting on the living room couch, barely moving as if she wants to keep her body as small as possible, touch the least amount of couch surface area as possible. And the smell, the smell hit him before he even opened the front door. But it's even stronger now that she's inside. I mean, not that he cares about the smell as long as his daughter is home, but it's such a it's such a strong cigarette smell.

Of course, she's been gone for two weeks. He's not expecting her to smell great. But even if Yuna had spent two full weeks, every second, every day, every night, inside of a club, a hookah bar, surrounded by chain smokers, he doubt she would smell this bad.

Her dad stated it was so bad that he even later washed her clothes multiple times and it was embedded in the fabric. The scent would not leave. But most alarming is Yuna's eyes were very unfocused, like she's in a daze. She's sitting on the couch, staring at the wall as if she can see through the wall, like she's hypnotized. It seems like she's disassociating. And he walks up to her and he tries not to scare her. And he asks, what happened to you during the two weeks? It's okay, you can tell me. What happened?

When a child goes missing, all the parents typically care about is getting them home safely. Maybe the first few hours they're missing, there's confusion, there's anger. They suspect the kids are out late so that they can hang out with all the bad friends that you do not approve of. But when they still don't come home at the end of the night, I think all of those feelings are just replaced by sheer panic and concern. It doesn't matter why they're gone, where they went to, who they're hanging out with, what they're smoking. None of it matters as long as they come home.

Japan, 1988. Junko has the phone up to her ear. Part of her just wants to scream into the phone, "Please help me! These kids are holding me captive and they've been gang-SA-ing me 12 times a day! They're using objects to SA and burn my areas with the lighter!" She just wants to scream that and see what happens. Another part of her is replaying the captor's words over and over in her head, which is along the lines of,

You see that? That car over there? Yakuza, we know your home address. If you don't do as we say, I'm gonna kill you and that car over there is gonna drive directly to your parents' house and kill them. Is that what you want? Junko waits for the phone to stop ringing and she hears her family on the other line. Junko? I'm running away. I'm not in danger. Call off the police search and tell them I'm okay. I'm gonna stay with a friend. I don't want the police looking for me.

Junko's parents are confused and they don't believe her because it doesn't make sense. She's never been like this. This is the daughter that rarely misses school. And the night that she ran away from home, she had been talking about that night for weeks. It was the night that she would come home from her part-time job. She was going to watch the finale of her favorite TV show. She told her brothers, don't you dare even touch the TV that night because it's mine.

Additionally, it was Junko's mom's birthday. The night that Junko disappeared, she had already been in the process of buying supplies to bake her mom a strawberry cake. And then suddenly out of nowhere, with no event, no fight, she just runs away. It just doesn't make sense. Junko hangs up, but she would call again a few more times over the next five days, begging her parents to stop looking for her.

Junko's parents would never stop looking for their daughter. But the police were no longer as concerned. It hardly seems like an emergency situation anymore. I mean, Junko's reached out to the parents. She said she ran off. The police reassured the parents, we're still actively investigating. Just sit tight. But she's no longer their top priority anymore. Junko's kidnappers' plans are working.

South Korea 2014 Yoona's dad just wants to know a few things now that Yoona's back home. One, what happened during those two weeks that you were gone? Two, why do you seem so traumatized? And three, why is she acting like she's gonna leave any second? She's constantly looking over her shoulder like she's got a go bag stuffed in her closet ready to go. Yoona tries to reassure her dad, it's nothing, seriously, I was just hanging out with my friends. You were being dramatic. You didn't need to call the police.

He does not believe her for a single second. And he's determined. He's going to figure it out. He's going to find out what the hell happened in those two weeks. It is very rare for someone to do something for 12 hours a day. If you were to work 12 hours a day for seven days, you'd be working 84 hours a week, double the average work week, and then some.

Most people don't even sleep 12 hours a day. Truly, it's very hard for someone to do one activity for 12 hours per day. I imagine it can't be enjoyable in any sense. 12 hours a day, though, is just how long both girls, Junko and Yuna, are essayed during their captivity. 12 hours every single day for over a month. Japan, 1988.

Junko is not allowed to wear clothes. The first few days Junko was taken into captivity, she was held hostage and gang essayed by the four main perpetrators. There's four teenagers that are mainly responsible for this. The bicycle boy and his friends. But soon she would hear them calling their friends over and they would tell their friends and their friends and this is a paraphrase but along the lines of they'd be on the phone saying, we have a free woman trapped inside ready to be used.

Every single day from then on, 12 times a day, 12 to 18 hours a day, Junko would be essayed. Eventually, the captors and their friends would get bored of, quote, just assaulting Junko. The fun was more so in the power and the torture and the humiliation. They would force Junko to lay there while they all took turns urinating on her. Sometimes they would play loud disco music and force her to, quote, dance for them while...

touching her privates. They would make fun of her. It was estimated that Junge was essayed by at least 100 different men during her 44 days in captivity. Selling a little or a lot. Shopify helps you do your thing, however you cha-ching. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage to the first real life store stage, all the way to the did we just hit a million orders?

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The sexual torture would only escalate in the next few weeks. It's almost like her captors and the other friends who would be invited over were playing this game of who can be more sick, who can be more twisted. Within a few weeks, they start essaying Junko with other objects. They initially start with random objects that they could find to get their hands on, but eventually they start intentionally looking for objects that would cause the most damage. They

They begin to torture Junko by inserting sharp scissors, metal rods, metal skewers that you use to grill meat on, glass beverage bottles into her private parts to essay her. At one point, they placed a hot light bulb into her private region and roughly moved it around until it shattered inside of her.

Junko would be essayed so regularly and so brutally that her internal organs were quote mangled by the end of the 44 days, by the end of the six weeks of hell. South Korea 2014, Yuna had come home after two weeks and she was finally ready to tell her dad everything that happened. Do you know a chat room called sex meeting?

Well, Yuna had a listing on there and it reads hourly rate of $150. No perverts allowed. Condoms are mandatory. No young people. People should be 30 or older. Yuna is 15 and every single day she would be forced into meeting up with at least eight clients every day for 10 to 12 hours a day. She was essentially essayed and sex trafficked eight times a day.

Yuna explains to her dad how she was sex trafficked, forced into sex work by who she thought was going to be her boyfriend, Kim, and his friends at this random motel room. They call themselves the runaway family. And it all happened so quickly. By the time she realized what was going on, it was too late. It started with a favor.

Yuna is sitting in the motel room and the whole group is crowding around her. They're all staring at her, starting to stress her out. It's just one hour. Yuna is clearly uncomfortable. It's not that hard. Just go and talk to some old ajishis, some old men, inflate their egos, spend time with them, quality time and that's it, and you get paid. Yuna doesn't say anything because it doesn't really feel right, but they tell her that Helen, the girl that usually does this, she's sick so she can't go. Do you want her to get more sick from exhausting her body?

Besides, you can get money for that hour. Doesn't everybody want money? Doesn't everybody need money? Kim tells her that he never likes to ask for any favors and he really would never unless it was absolutely important. Besides, they'd all be in the same motel waiting in the car in the front when she gets out so they can all go out to eat afterwards.

That's what Yuna thought it would be. Talking to some old middle-aged men, providing emotional comfort. One hour, that's it. But instead, it would be the start of a nightmare two weeks of being forced into sex trafficking and tortured by her clients and the runaway family. They would tell her, I don't know if you understand, but the situation has changed. Things are different now. Kim, your boyfriend, is gone.

Kim leaves. He was never really your boyfriend, Yuna. He's gone and he's left you with us. You're ours now. A.K.A. she is now going to be sex trafficked and every penny she makes will go straight to them. Wait, so Kim is no longer in the picture at all? No, he leaves. Side note, Yuna was making about $1,000 a day and the group would blow it all on food and drinks. And they tell her, you're going to do whatever we say if you want to stay alive.

When Yuna's dad hears this, he is ready to go straight to the police, but Yuna starts freaking out, basically grabbing his arm so that he can't walk out of the room. You cannot, like you just can't. What do you mean I can't? I'm going to. Yuna starts panicking. You can't tell them because they told me the whole world is going to find out that I'm a sex worker and they're just going to say that I chose to do this and I'm just a slut and a whore. Everyone will know and my life is going to be ruined.

Which if that's the case, then why would the runaway family let Yuna go? Why would they let go of their only source of income? Their quote product, as they say. There were whispers around town that Yuna was gone, that she vanished. Her dad was looking for her everywhere. This is when she's missing for two weeks.

Most people at Yuna's all-girl high school, they knew that something obviously happened to Yuna. It's the first year of high school, only one of the most important years of your entire life in South Korea. And it sounds like a joke, it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm very serious. It is one of the four years that will determine where you go to college. And for the general public, that is going to determine your socioeconomic status for the rest of your life. Nobody just transfers out the first week of high school. Something must have happened to her.

The most popular theory was that she ran off with the new boyfriend, which isn't inaccurate per se, but everybody knew that Yuna was dating someone. They could see it. She went from being this very quiet girl the first two days, and then literally in the span of a few days, she starts smiling. She's skipping to class, smiling at her phone nonstop. Every class break, she's on her phone. That can only mean one thing. She's dating someone.

But I don't think that any of that really mattered to Yuna's dad. He just wanted to find her, get her home, and in order to do that, he filed a police report.

Since Eunice's captors are 14, 15, 24, 25, they are all part of the same circle. Some of them go to the same middle school, same high school in that area, and they have connections to everybody in that school. And they find out through the grapevine that Eunice's dad is desperately searching for his daughter, getting police involved. The runaway family, they start freaking out. If they do nothing, the police will eventually track them down and they will have to explain why they kept a girl hostage in a motel room sex trafficking her.

They think of maybe they can tell the police that she was just a poor runaway girl and they were trying to help her, but that's not going to work. The best case scenario is the police do not get involved at all with the group. So how do they do that? They turn to Yuna. If you promise us something...

we'll let you go home. They let her go home if she promises not to tell anybody what happened or who she met up with when she ran away. And that is why after two weeks of being held captive, they let Yuna go. Their plan was Yuna will not say a single thing and none of them will be in trouble. And maybe their plan would have worked better had they just made Yuna call her dad, just like 26 years ago in Japan when Junko was forced to call her parents. But

But they sent her home. And right when Yuna's dad saw her face, he knew immediately something was very, very wrong.

When it comes to holding someone captive, usually there's one rule. Don't let them go. I mean, it's like the most standard of all the rules. Now, enforcing all of that, it's a whole different story. South Korea, 2014. It's not exactly what Yuna wanted to do right when she gets home, but her dad wants her to go to church. It's the best place for her to be right now. I mean, Yuna's been back. She's constantly anxious. She's looking over her shoulder. She told her dad, I think somebody's watching me.

He convinces her that there's nowhere safer than church. He already told the pastor what happened. He's filled in. He's gonna watch over Yuna to make sure nobody bothers her or even tries to talk to her about what she's been going through. She's gonna be protected.

But even then, the pastor's not going to be able to stop people from staring at her. Everything the runaway family told Yuna would happen was happening. Everyone in school found out about what happened to Yuna once her dad told the police. There were group chats dedicated to talking about how Yuna, the newly transferred girl, was caught doing sex work after running away from home for two weeks. That's what they're focusing on? After a girl has been sex trafficked? Yeah, they said. Like they're gossiping about her? Yeah. Yeah.

Some of the students feel sorry for her. Other students feel like, well, then she shouldn't have run away in the first place, which is, I mean, you get it. But regardless of what people thought about you in a situation, whether they felt sympathy or pity or just, oh, that's what she gets, all these weird feelings, the runaway family were right. Everybody knew what happened to her and her dad had reported it to the police. Everyone knew, including the runaway family.

Church sermons are usually split into groups. The adult service, the youth service, the junior service. Some churches even have sermons for the daycare group. Yuna and her dad would be split up during their sermons, but he promises her the second that his sermon is out, he's going to be right by her side again. But when he gets out, he would later state that he sees the youth pastor on the phone outside and he's confused. What is this man doing? Isn't he supposed to be watching over my daughter? Yuna's dad searches everywhere.

every single room, every single bathroom in that church. Yuna is gone and he won't see her alive ever again. The runaway family had come to take her back.

They kidnapped her or? Kidnapped her from church. If you were to simplify the concept of keeping control over captives, it would boil off into two types of control, physical control and psychological control. The physical control are restraints, locked rooms, constant surveillance, just ripping them of any shred of autonomy or freedom of movement. And then the psychological control. And in a lot of cases, that just comes down to humiliation.

Japan, 1988. Junko could not run from her captors. Literally, she could not run. They cut her Achilles tendon and lit her ankles on fire. You know that part right above the back of your ankle where you flex your toes up and it's slightly bony part that sticks out from the back? Junko's captors cut that part. They cut the tendon in there and they lit her ankles on fire.

They did this due in part for the torture aspect. It's known to be unbearably painful when your Achilles tendon is ripped or shredded or even just torn. It's a very painful injury on the body. But also, once you cut or damage your Achilles tendon, the likelihood that you can run, let alone walk,

almost none. Initially, a lot of the control that Junko's captors had on her was physical. They locked her up in one of their rooms, would not let her leave, always had someone watching her, tied her up with tape. But eventually, they would start beating her every single day with golf clubs, those long bamboo sticks, iron rods. She was so badly injured that for her to even crawl to the restroom to drag herself to the toilet took her an hour. There was no way that she was physically going to get away.

But there is a very strong psychological aspect to her captivity as well. They made sure that she knew that she had zero control over her life. They had the ultimate power. And that came through some really perverse methods of humiliation. They would force Junko into the freezer, a giant standalone freezer. They would throw her body in there, close it, and just leave her in there for hours.

They would throw her outside on the balcony to sleep in the middle of the night where temperatures can get as low as 23 degrees Fahrenheit. If she's lucky, sometimes it can go down to negative 13 degrees Fahrenheit, which by that point, Junko likely isn't even going to think about escaping. She's not focusing on that. She's focusing on getting out of the freezer. She's focusing on getting off the balcony. That's where her attention and energy are inevitably going to be. Most experts say that psychological control is more restraining than the actual physical restraints.

In Junko's case, her captors fed her mainly a diet of live cockroaches, centipedes, and her intake of liquids were mainly her captors' urine and feces.

as well as biological fluids. Later during her autopsy, coroners would find what they described as a translated but quote unthinkable amount of semen, so much so that they did not believe it was possible for her to even be able to digest it without severe issues. Once tested, it was discovered later that some of the biological fluids belong to animal life.

Animal semen. What? Like they're just getting it from somewhere and just making her consume? Some netizens suspect bestiality. Some netizens suspect they were getting it somehow.

South Korea, 2014, 26 years later, humiliation was also the focus in Yuna's case. The runaway family, her captors, they start, once they kidnap her from church, bring her back, that's where a lot of the abuse starts escalating. They start using her as a personal punching bag. They would take degrading photos of her body, post them onto texting apps. They would force her to connect with creepy old men online that wanted to pay for intimate relations and do really...

Disgusting actions in bed with a 15-year-old? Even after being kidnapped from church, Yuna would be sex trafficked four to eight separate times per day.

And these sessions would last hours. And when she wasn't being essentially essayed, they would grab her by the hair, throw her onto the ground, and they would scream at her. The runaway family kept telling Yuna that they were really upset that she told her dad what happened. They called her selfish. They said, you only think about yourself. We let you stay at our place. We fed you. And this is what you do? And for that, they claimed that she deserved to be punished.

While the runaway family would lounge on the bed or the little sofa in the motel room to watch TV, drink, and eat good food, Yuna was mainly crawled up on the floor in a fetal position when she wasn't being sex trafficked. Sometimes one of the younger girls would turn around just to pick on her. If you don't stop staring, I'm going to scoop out your eyeballs.

Yuna would be forced to drink ungodly amounts of alcohol for the group's entertainment. She would be forced to eat her own vomit. She would be physically assaulted and beaten every single night. They would host fight clubs where they would taunt Yuna, "'We'll let you go.'"

As long as you can fight every single one of us and win. Most of the time when they proposed such a game, Yuna was not in a state where she could even fight. Whether she was too injured or too drunk or both. And god forbid she actually did harm one of them, it's likely that they would hold her down and assault her together. They would grab objects to throw at Yuna and when they didn't feel like that was enough, the group would throw literal chairs and desks just

Just full pieces of furniture at Yuna's body. They would grab her by the hair, force her face all the way back so that her neck is extended forward. Like this, where you're, I guess if you were to have an Adam's apple, it'd be poking out, right? And they would essentially karate chop her neck, the soft spots of her neck using the edge of their hand. They would beat her with steel bug spray canisters. They would spray bug spray all over her and she was starved.

In both cases, the girls were starving. They were both dehydrated. And even if they were given food, it is likely that once the physical abuse escalated, they would not be able to keep any of it down because they had such extensive injuries, they would throw it all right back up.

I think the most confusing part about both cases is how nobody did anything for the month or in Junko's case 44 days that the girls are held captive. It's not like both of them are secretly held captive in some sort of isolated dungeon. They're both being held hostage in plain sight and nobody did anything about it. Japan 1988.

Over 100 people knew that Junke was being held captive and tortured because she was assayed by at least 100 different people. But there were others too. Others who did not partake in the assay, but they saw her and nobody did anything. Well, I'm sure they're all telling other people too.

Like, you know, in that age, you must be telling all your friends and your groups. So you could probably safely estimate hundreds of people. Some of them would later say, well, we were too scared because the captor had ties to the Yakuza. So one of the four main high schoolers that kidnapped Junko, apparently his uncle has ties to the Yakuza, which side note, like I said, the Yakuza is like the mafia of Japan. They are a very scary group, but I digress.

That means every single day that there were new people, several people at a time, finding out about what was happening to Junko and they did nothing. But you would think that one of the few people who aren't scared to say something would be the parents of the guy who's holding Junko captive. Because Junko is held captive in Shinji Minato's house. Upstairs in his room where he lives with his parents and his brother. So the whole family knows. Yeah. Yeah.

At first, Shinji lied to his parents stating that Junko is his girlfriend. But eventually, everybody just drops the act because it's so obvious that Junko is not his girlfriend. She's screaming for help and begging for mercy on a daily basis. Every part of her body is broken. She is a shell of a human. There is no way she's just a girlfriend who's willingly staying upstairs.

Shinji's parents knew that. Some sources state that Shinji's mom tried to help at one point, tried to help Junko escape, but the attempt was unsuccessful and she was beaten for a few hours by her 16-year-old son, Shinji.

Now, I don't feel bad for her because since that night, it is stated that she pretended that Junko had gone home. She just stopped going upstairs. She didn't want to get beaten by her own son. She didn't want the neighbors to know what their son was up to. She didn't want their good family name to be ruined. So she just lived in her fake Delululand where she told herself the screams are just the walls creaking and Junko has gone home.

So nobody was helping Junko. At one point, there was a young girl around Junko's age that came over and saw Junko. And instead of doing something about it, I mean, I don't know if I would expect her to do something about it right then and there, but maybe go home once you're safe and tell your parents, tell everybody. The girl takes a pen and starts doodling a beard on Junko's face. Doodling a beard? Yeah, like taking a sharpie and doodling a beard. South Korea, 2014.

It's hard to estimate just how many people knew what was going on with Yuna, but it can't be nobody. It can't just be the runaway family. I mean, they're jumping from motel to motel. They have to check in with the motel staff, use the elevators, run into other people in the hallways, outside. They have to move Yuna because near the end, she wasn't even able to walk on her own. She had her whole body was filled with cuts, bruises and puss. Nobody said a single thing.

Even without Yoona's extensive injuries, you would hope that some motel staff would say something after seeing a bunch of 20-something-year-old men checking in with girls that are clearly 14. But nothing. The runaway family are basically running a child trafficking ring out in the open. I believe they jumped even from multiple different cities and nobody said a single thing.

But fine, if the perpetrators, their friends, and even the motel staff do nothing, at least the police are going to do something, considering both girls have been reported missing by their parents. It's not like nobody's looking for these girls. Japan, 1988. The police receive a very strange phone call.

A college boy had called to tell them that his younger brother had witnessed a crime. His younger brother came home overly excited, but also panicked and stressed out. And he starts rambling about he just saw at his friend's house. There's this girl that's like a circus animal. She's tied up being essayed over and over. And all sorts of strangers are like coming and peeing on her. And they're sticking light bulbs and bugs inside of her. She has zero autonomy and they're tortured. They're hanging her up from the ceiling and using her like a punching bag, beating her like a piñata.

This is by far the strangest call that the police have received all day. They immediately dispatch two officers to the house in question. They knock on the Minato house. Shinji's parents come to the door. Shinji Minato. What's going on? The police explain the bizarre situation of the human punching bag forced to eat cockroaches. It sounds crazy. Oh, I'm sorry. There is no girl in the house. Just our two sons. You're sure? You're more than welcome to check, but we've never heard of a Junko. Doesn't ring a bell.

The police pause, they look upstairs towards the second floor. It's a small house, I mean there's no way that a girl is in here experiencing this level of trauma and torture and abuse and the parents don't hear a single thing? There's no way. So they brush it off. They thank Shinji's parents for their cooperation and have a nice day. It doesn't matter to them that there is an active missing persons case for a high schooler in the same area named Junko.

South Korea 2014. When Yuna goes missing the second time, when she disappears from church, the police do not consider Yuna a high priority missing persons case. Honestly, just like Junko's case, they're just lazy. They kept trying to bounce Yuna's dad off to other police officers. It's not my jurisdiction. It's not our jurisdiction. You got to call these people.

To show you how lazy they were, Yuna went missing from church where there are lots of CCTV cameras at this church. If they just played through the footage, they would see that Yuna did not walk out on her own. She was effectively dragged out by these two girls. Her body language is screaming that something's not right here. She does not want to leave. But by the time that the police actually checked the footage, it is too late for Yuna. She would be dead.

So if nobody, not even the police, are doing their jobs to look for them, the girls would end up trying to save themselves. Japan, 1988. Junko's captors are drunk. She can hear them. They went from being belligerent, well, which isn't really different from when they're sober, but they're starting to snore. This would be her only chance. All of them are drunk. They didn't tie her up. They knew that she was so badly injured that there's no way she can get to a phone. The only working phone happened to be on the first floor all the way downstairs. They didn't think she was going to get there.

So Junko starts crawling all the way downstairs. It takes her a very long time considering her injuries. And she finally makes it all the way down, reaches for the phone, dials emergency services. The phone finally picks up. What is your emergency? But right at that moment, she feels a hand closing over her mouth. She turns to her side and one of the captors is there with his finger up to his mouth. He grabs the phone. Sorry, my sister just misdialed by accident. He hangs up and drags her all the way back up.

"'She had just been caught.'

South Korea, 2014. Yuna knew it was her only chance. The motel staff are clearly not doing anything and the police weren't coming to save her anytime soon. The only phones that were in the room, in the motel room, were in everybody's pockets and they had disconnected the motel landline. But one of them had left the laptop open and unlocked on the desk and everybody else had fallen asleep. She could sign into her Facebook and send out her location, get help. It would just take a few quick clicks. That's it.

She quietly drags herself over to the computer, glancing around the room. She gets up and starts clicking on the keys so slowly that it doesn't even make a noise. She likely is frustrated how long her email and password is for security reasons, but she's sitting there, key by key, slowly entering it in. And then finally, she logs on. She uses the little trackpad to hover over and then...

Someone grabs her hair and slams her head back, and there is a hand gripping her throat. She had just been caught. So she only locked out and didn't say anything. Yeah. Both girls would have to pay for trying to escape. We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature, whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to or the succulents that adorn our homes. Nature makes all of our lives, well, better. Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it.

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Japan, 1988 Candle wax was how the captors decided to punish Junko. They tied her down and started running a candle up and down her body, burning her, dripping candle wax in the most painful places. They would hold her down and drip the candle wax onto her very thin eyelids and even into her eyes.

They would drip it into her private regions and all the areas where she had exposed flesh and wounds. Exposed meaning not just a scrape where the skin had been scraped off, but muscles are showing likely. A lot of Junko's torture focused on her legs.

Whether it was so that she couldn't run or if it was because they like to torture her private regions the most and her legs happened to be nearby, she had such severe muscle damage that she could not even move her legs. They start dripping the candle wax onto her legs, but that's not doing it for them. So they grab lighter fluid, douse her legs with them, and light her legs on fire. That way she could not even try to crawl.

They held her down by her arms and legs, tied her up in a starfish shape on the ground. They grabbed dumbbells. They would stand over her and hold the dumbbells out about shoulder height and drop them onto her body, smashing her bones. Junko's hands...

Every finger bone, every hand bone was smashed to pieces. Not broken, but smashed. Her fingernails had shattered into little pieces and she was no longer even able to grip anything, let alone a phone. They hung her from the ceiling and used her as a punching bag. They held her head down against concrete and they would take turns using all their strength to jump as high as possible and land on her head.

Her face was so swollen and smashed, you could not tell where her eyes were anymore. Junko was completely broken and fractured in every way possible. But she was still alive? Still alive.

South Korea 2014, 26 years later, Yuna was held down while one of the main captors, Lee, a 25-year-old man, would grab an electric fan. The ones with, um, in the older motels, they have these older fans where the blades are more metal and they're exposed.

It's actually a bit more powerful, but it's not like your little plastic fans where you can stick your finger in and it stops the blades from running. It's pretty sharp. Like back in the days, the fans were metal. Yes. And they would hold her down and they would run the blades and have it smash into her ribs over and over in the same spot.

Many of the sources that I found stated that she had either cracked or fractured ribs at this point from the metal blades of the fan. And in that state where her ribs are fractured, which is an injury that people say even it just hurts to even breathe. It is such a sharp pain that is so severe and deep inside of you and so constant that you don't even want to move an inch, let alone breathe. You want to exhale air as slowly as possible.

One netizen said, "I fractured a rib once. Anything other than a small breath felt like a knife to the side. Rolling over in bed? Knife to the side. Bending down to tie your shoes? Two knives to the side. Reaching to get something? Knife to the side." People with fractured ribs say they were terrified of sneezing because of the pain it was going to cause, but the runaway family would force Yuna to do 100 squats with fractured ribs for their entertainment.

She would be delirious from the pain and barely conscious from everything that was going on. And they would, in that state where she's not even there, they would force her to memorize multiplication charts. And if they would quiz her on math and she answered incorrectly, they would beat her more.

It sounds like this group is more like having fun with mentally torturing her, like enjoying the process. Yeah, I would say that Junko's captors are just purely more sadistic. This feels like sadistic bullies. Yeah, they are looking for entertainment. Yes. Whereas I think Junko's group, I'm sure they are getting a level of entertainment, but it seems more like they're getting off on the pain.

But this group, for Yuna's case, they're getting off on the entertainment of pain. I know it's like such a slight difference, but it is so sick. Yeah, they would just keep beating her.

Now, both girls' bodies, for example, Junko's injuries were a lot more extensive. I don't think that people call the Korean case the Junko case because of the extent of injuries per se, but because everything is so eerily similar. So I don't want to make it seem like, oh, this is the same amount of injury or physical pain. Both girls had sustained injuries that were really bad. Junko, obviously worse, but

Near the end, neither of them could walk on their own. Neither of them could hold down food or even water without throwing it up immediately. They were both severely malnourished.

Both groups of captors just kept going and coming up with more creative ways to torture their hostages. It almost becomes a sick game of who can torture them in the more creative, sadistic way possible. It seems like they become addicted to the pain that they are causing. I do think that every single one of these people in both cases are sick and twisted and would 1000% commit these crimes with or without their friend group. But I think the

The uniqueness, as they say, of the torture aspect, the acts of torture was egged on by the group mentality is what a lot of experts say of wanting to outdo each other almost. Oh, like that's all you could come up with. I'm way more creative, which I hope nobody takes this as me excusing any of them or lessening the impact of what they did. I honestly think this just makes it worse. This is more sick.

A lot of netizens were confused because obviously when it comes to sex crimes, it's never about the sex, it's about power. But Junko's captors were really excited to have a "plaything" ready at their disposal. They stated that they no longer found Junko attractive, so they had to go and find another one. They kidnap and start gang essaying another woman, a 19 year old girl.

In the runaway family case, the whole reason Kim even reached out to Yuna was so that they could sex traffic her. But now they had assaulted her to the extent that she could no longer work and make money. It's just interesting. A lot of people point out that both groups of captors, they kidnapped the girls for a very specific reason, but they become overtaken by the sadistic torture. And the torture becomes the new motive. Japan, 1988. Junko had five fireworks.

placed inside of her. One in each ear, that makes two. One in her mouth, that's three. Two in both of her private regions, and that's five. Her captors would wait for the fireworks to go off inside of her, and they would let them explode. I don't have the medical knowledge to tell you exactly what injuries she would have sustained from that kind of torture, nor is there enough readily available research online that I could pull from, but...

Especially when it comes to her private regions, Junko had already been so viciously abused that it's hard to state which torturous action caused which injury because they had been SA-ing her at this point with glass shards, knives, metal grilling skewers for over a month straight. But as for the ones in her ears, the fireworks, her eardrums were busted from the fireworks. She was nearly deaf at this point. They placed fireworks in all of her orifices

Her captors also shoved sewing needles into her chest. They stabbed hundreds into her chest to the point where later on the autopsy showed there were no gaps in between the needles. They just kept shoving more and more and then they would take turns punching her in the chest. They would leave the needles in there. South Korea 2014

yuna just wanted some water she had a very high fever her body was giving up on her everything felt sore and bruised and cut up and she cannot breathe she begs her captors just give me one sip of water just a little bit of water water you think you have the right to ask for water lee the main abuser the 25 year old captor tells the girls the high school girls to run the kettle boil some water what just do it

They rush over to the kettle and they turn it on. When it's done boiling, Lee grabs it. He stands over Yuna's body who is crawled up in a fetal position on the ground and starts dripping scalding hot water near her. She flinches a little, she's terrified and that gets him going. He gets closer and closer till he starts splattering the hot scalding water all over her arms, legs, thighs, face, every part of her body.

She cannot even move. She's in so much pain she's barely screaming either. She's just softly begging them to stop. But they don't. By the end, again not as extreme but very similar to Junko, Yuna's entire body would be covered in pus- pustules? From the burns. And in both cases, it comes down to one last thing. One last game. The captors in both cases want to play one last game with the girls.

Both girls would look their captors in the face and play. Japan 1988

Junko had accumulated so much blood in her sinuses that she could no longer breathe through her nose. She could barely see after the damage of the hot candle wax to her eyes. She cannot hear from the fireworks exploding in her ears. She cannot eat or drink anything. Her digestive system is shutting down. She weighs close to 65 pounds. She cannot hold her urine. Some parts of her body are said to have already started rotting and she smelled like death.

Every part of her body was infected. Her brain had shrunk to a fraction of the size it originally was from the extreme stress. All of her hair had fallen out mainly. Her brain had become shriveled. She couldn't even grip anything with her hands. She could not walk. She could not sit up on her own. She had blood and pus-filled boils all over her body. She had shattered glass bottles still remaining inside of her private regions, digging into her insides. And yet she is still alive and

and when her captors challenge her to a game of mahjong, she would look them in the eye and she would win one last game. South Korea 2014. Yuna is crouched up like a ball on the floor of the backseat of the car. They had driven her somewhere secluded and she couldn't really tell. They said that they wanted to play a game. Tell us Yuna, if you could take any one of us with you when you die, who would you take? Remember how 25 year old Lee was the worst abuser?

The one that poured boiling water over her, the one that used the metal fan blades to shatter her ribs. She looks up and says, Lee. Lee was there. He laughs, leans back and starts beating Yuna, screaming, what the fuck did I ever do to you? And they make her choose again. Yuna likely knows what's going to happen by whoever she chooses. And yet she still raises her head and names the next person she would take.

and they would start beating her with a brick. They were losing their minds. They're screaming at her, "You're out of your mind. I've been nothing but nice to you and now you want to make fun of me? Do you want to die? Let's die together then." Japan, 1988. After losing a game of mahjong against Junko, Junko's captors start beating her with an iron barbell. They force her to stand up, but she can't, so she ends up falling backwards, hitting her head against a stereo, splattering blood everywhere, and starts convulsing.

Her captors are really pissed though because they think that she's faking it and when she stops, she stops moving completely, they're confused. They're like, "There's no way she's dead." They kick her, nothing. They smack her, nothing. They drop another dumbbell on her, nothing. And now they're agitated. She's really pretending.

So they grab lighter fluid and spray it all over her face, forcing it even into her eyes, on her eyeballs. And then they take a candle to light her on fire because they think she's faking it and this way they'll know she's not. But she flinches just a little. She was still alive at this point. But she would be burned alive and her final torture would last two hours before her body finally goes into shock and she dies. South Korea 2014.

Eunice captors drop the bloody brick onto the ground. Why isn't she moving anymore? They put their hands under her nose to check for her breathing, for air, but nothing. What the hell? They start freaking out. I think she's dead. They start freaking out not because they killed someone, but how inconvenient this is gonna be.

The captors drive to an isolated orchard. Using a shovel and a pickaxe, they start digging a human-sized hole in the ground. A grave. They throw Yoona's limp body in. Now, some sources speculate that she might have still been alive at this point. But before they cover her body, they pour gasoline all over her face in particular and throw a match in to light her on fire. They want her face to be completely unrecognizable. When her face is completely charred black, they put out the fire and cover her with soil.

Within 26 days of first meeting the perpetrators, Yuna is dead. But fire is not enough. 26 years apart, both groups of captors have the same idea. They want to make the body disappear. But if that's not feasible, how do you make it seem like it disappears? Maybe you will hide it in plain sight. Japan, 1988. The captors place Junko's body into a 55-gallon oil drum and fill it to the brim with concrete.

They want to hide the fact that the muscle in her entire body looks melted at this point. All of her organs appear to have burst and are shattered. Some organs were mangled beyond recognition. There were clear signs of forcible tooth extraction. Her lips were completely cut up and barely there. Most of her face bones were crushed. They thought the concrete would fully encase the extent of their crimes and would completely hide Junko's body so that they could move on, get away with murder.

South Korea 2014. The runaway family realized something. Orchards are not a great place to bury a body. Because it's the one place that people naturally dig. They want to plant new trees to produce fruits and vegetables. So that's the whole point of the orchard, no? So they go back to her grave, dig it back up, and they see Yuna's body there. Maggots crawling everywhere. And they grab the cement mixture and start pouring, filling and covering Yuna completely.

Just cement into the ground. They think that if someone were to come and try to dig to plant a tree, they see cement, they're just gonna give up and dig somewhere else. They thought the concrete would fully encase the extent of their crimes, would completely hide Yuna's body, so that they could move on, getting away with murder. I think one could argue that the crimes are similar but not identical. But things start getting very strangely identical around the time of both groups' arrest. Japan, 1988.

One of Junko's captors is arrested. The police sit him down in the interrogation room and tell them, we know what you did. We know what you did to that girl. We know who you did it with, and we're going to get you guys for it. He just opens his mouth, the captor, and starts confessing to everything that they did to Junko over the span of 44 days. And when he finally stops talking, when he's done telling the police everything that Junko had been through, they tell him, that's not what we were talking about. We didn't even know what...

They had arrested him for the kidnapping and gang essay of the 19-year-old girl. Remember? The other victim? South Korea, 2014. Initially, four of Yuna's captors were arrested. They were wandering around a park when undercover cops came up to them and put them in handcuffs. Officers bring them into the station for murder. The murder of a man named John. They were arrested for a completely different case. They murdered someone else? Yes.

Well, let's call the man John. We just know that his last name is Kim. He had been looking for a sex worker online when he came across an ad posted by one of the girls from the runaway family. This is a few days after Yuna's murder. They agree on the rate and he goes to meet them at the hotel. He walks into the bathroom afterwards to freshen up. And when he walks back out, there are full grown men sitting on the bed. You know, you just had relations with a minor. You're going to have to pay a whole lot for that unless you want the world to know.

They start beating John, dragging him out the motel, into the car, beating him some more, taking his jewelry, keys, wallet. The main purpose for physically assaulting him to the extent that they were was they wanted more money. He would need to give them his bank passcodes, his social security money, his social security number for them to take all of it. By the end, John was slumped over in the backseat, dead from the beatings.

Which we don't have too much information on John's death, but we do know the beatings were obviously very bad. The perpetrators would actually switch seats in the backseat to sit next to him and beat him, like take turns, because they would get tired. All for $3,500. When they realize that he is dead, they panic, leave him in the car, and run away.

Which is really dumb considering Korean cars legally need black boxes, which are recording devices. Aside from license registration and plates, it's pretty easy to track who's been in that car. Japan, 1988. Junko's killers would be charged with causing bodily injury resulting in death rather than murder. What? Yeah.

I mean, it's beyond insanely lenient considering it's not even the group's first time committing crimes. People reported if the group of Junko's captors were around, they would always hear a woman screaming for her life around. They were constantly getting at same people. Despite the sheer ruthlessness of their crimes, they were charged as juveniles, which I believe do adult crime do adult time.

Hiroshi was sentenced to 20 years, Shinji Minato 5-7 years, even though it took place in his house, Yasushi Watanabe received 5-7 years, and Joe Ugura received 8 years. And these people are all out by now. Yes, still alive, still committing crimes. We're going to get into it.

South Korea, 2014. Once the public found out about Yuna's murder, they were terrified that the killers would be charged with causing bodily harm resulting in death. But the perpetrators were charged with murder. There were two trials, one held for the underage minors and the other held for the adult men that committed the crimes. This is where things get tricky. The girls that were involved in the case were 14 to 15 years old, two 14 year olds, two 15 year olds.

Their defense attorneys argued that the girls were victims before they were perpetrators, stating that before Yoona, they were forced into sex work and after seeing what was happening to Yoona, they were terrified to not participate because they believed if we don't do this, it's going to be us next. They said that the guys made them follow bizarre rules. One of the rules that they would have to recite every morning when they woke up was literally rule number three, always be alert or you can be targeted like Yoona. Anybody can be the next target.

Ultimately, the judge acknowledged that the girls were both perpetrators and victims, and the judge stated,

age and stature. They were about 10 years younger and the younger defendants must have felt some fear watching the harsh acts committed by the male accomplices against the victim. But the judge argued that the girls still did nothing to try and help Yoona. They did not alert the authorities, they did not tell an adult, even up until the last second they did not do anything. The judge felt like yes, the girls are victims, but they are also perpetrators. The girls were sentenced to around six to nine years each.

The second trial consisted of the adult men. Kim, the boyfriend that lured Yuna to the motel, was actually not involved in the murder. He was consulted on how to mix the concrete. He gave them advice, but he was not there for most of the abuse or the killing, which I don't really think means anything. He knew what they were going to do to her. He knew that he was luring underage girls out of their homes, but he was only sentenced to five years.

The rest of the guys, they start pointing the finger at each other. Eventually, the guys even start blaming the underage girls stating that they don't know why the underage girls were beating Yuna. They never told the girls to do that. They start alleging that the girls did that on their own free will and maybe they misheard what the guys told them to do. But when that didn't work, they argued that they can't be held responsible for their crimes because they were drunk and have impulse control issues. The perpetrators whose identities have not been released were sentenced to 35 years to life in prison.

Just one person or? Three. Now, remorse is a big thing for both cases. During the trial for Junko's case, one of the captors even said, Junko was just unlucky and she got caught like a fool. I mean, isn't she ashamed to have attracted such messed up people like us? Yeah. One of the mothers of Junko's perpetrators even blamed Junko for the fact that her son is now going to be in prison and going to be an ex-convict. She said, this is all because of Junko. Then she went and vandalized Junko's grave.

Another killer's mom, 35 years after the fact, opened up a restaurant nearby the place of the murder, which just seems intentionally disrespectful. Wait, 35 years? Yeah, like recently, I believe. She opened up a restaurant nearby. I did see some people bringing up how one of the captors, Junko's killers, wanted to leave flowers near her grave to honor her after killing her. But the others convinced them, absolutely not.

But it was not because he had a sudden change in character or suddenly felt human emotions. He wanted to put flowers out near her grave because he was scared that Junko's spirit would be mad at him and would haunt him like a ghost and that he would be cursed by her vengeful spirit.

For Yoona's case, netizens were furious that the adult men's identities are being protected. They commented, Another comment reads,

And if you really think about it, if history really does in fact repeat itself, shouldn't the identities of the adult male killers in Yuna's case be leaked? In Japan, originally, the names of Junko's four killers were redacted. Their identities are protected. But journalists were able to find out their government names and publish them for everyone. All four of them. The reporters said, they're not human, therefore they shall not receive human rights.

Nobody disagreed. The killers' names are Hiroshi Miyano, 18 years old at the time of the crime, Joe Ugura, 18 years old, Shinji Minato, 16 years old, Yasushi Watanabe, 17 years old. As of right now, all of Junko's killers are free. Most of them have changed their names, committed more crimes, including SA and even attempted murder where one of them slashed a man's throat with a knife. But they're all free again.

And soon, Yuna's killers will be free too. And we have no idea who they are or where they're going to be. And that is the case of South Korea's Junko.

So this is like... Miryang rape case. Yes. So I see a lot of comments for us to cover it. We've covered it. It's just an audio format. We are debating revisiting that case, but we're following all the new developments and just keeping up with it. If you guys want to get the full case in detail, let me know in the comments. But 44 kids...

brutally essayed a girl gang essayed a girl and she the their identities are being leaked right now not by the government by literally netizens yeah so let me know in the comments if you guys want us to cover that and but it's ongoing so we're gonna have to wait but please stay safe please and take care of yourself and i will see you guys in the next one bye