Speaker 1 00:00
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Deer, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I’m Lucy Sherriff.
Speaker 1 00:15
Over the past four years, I’ve spoken with Deer’s family and friends, and I’ve discovered that everyone has a different version of events. Hear the story on Where’s Deer? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2 00:34
Hi, I’m Lale Arakoglou, host of Women Who Travel. Women Who Travel is a podcast for anyone curious about the world. We talk to adventurers and athletes.
Speaker 3 00:45
I’ve raced the Godzone Adventure Race, which is on the South Island and goes through the mountains down in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. That was eight days spent out in the wilderness. And chefs.
Speaker 1 00:59
Iranian food is home, it’s family, it’s love.
Speaker 2 01:04
And we share dispatches from our listeners.
Speaker 3 01:11
Of these…
Speaker 2 01:14
I will call them ghosts of the past. From stampeding elephants to training sled dogs. We hear it all. The dogs will curl right up with you, and it can be kind of cozy waiting things out. New episodes of Women Who Travel publish every Thursday.
Speaker 2 01:30
Join us wherever you listen.
Speaker 4 01:33
No, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. We all see where that’s going. It had to be said.
Speaker 5 01:39
Did it. Here’s the thing. That’s what he’s good for. Making jokes. So every opportunity is a joke.
Speaker 4 01:49
A compliment is… it starts as a compliment and ends as an interruption.
Speaker 6 01:53
It was a compliment.
Speaker 4 01:54
Brian said to me the other day, this started as “I’m sorry” and it ended as “You’re welcome.” An inter-upliment. I feel like we’ve also talked ourselves into trouble. Maybe cut that. Yeah, cut that part too.
Speaker 6 02:20
Pack your body bags. We’re going on a slacation. These are murders and mysterious deaths that happen while you’re on vacation. I am your co-host, Adam Tex Davis. And as always, I’m joined by the dynamic duo of my lovely wife, Kim.
Speaker 6 02:37
Hello, everybody. And my buddy and business partner, Jerry. Hello.
Speaker 6 02:54
So we’re back. You know, we record these episodes, like, just so you know, we don’t record like the day before we put it out. Sometimes we’ll record like a couple in a day. So right now, it’s actually August 9th, right? And it’s a Friday.
Speaker 6 03:07
Yeah, that’s correct. It is, in fact, August 9th and a Friday. And I will say this…
Speaker 6 03:20
So yeah, the other episodes, we actually recorded that same day. So what’s good about that is, yeah, we have more episodes, but what’s bad is we don’t get to give real-time updates and stuff. So, I was going to give a quick finger update for anybody who cares.
Speaker 6 03:20
We all care.
Speaker 6 03:20
I went and had an X-ray. I tried to do it right after the show, which was a couple of weeks ago, and couldn’t get an X-ray that night. I did not want to go back to the emergency room wearing that same shirt from three and a half years ago. I couldn’t do it. So Kim and I, we went to an urgent care. The first one didn’t have an X-ray machine. We went to a second one that did have an X-ray machine, but no X-ray technician. And then we went to a third one where they assured us had an X-ray machine.
Speaker 6 03:54
It did. The technician had just left. Oh, it took forever. But there was a doctor, and the doctor showed me how his fingers were all messed up from playing basketball. He said, “Oh, they still work.” And then he taped my fingers together and said, “This is kind of the best thing to do.” He said he’d give me a referral to go the next morning and get an X-ray if I wanted peace of mind. So I did.
Speaker 6 04:16
I went to another urgent care that definitely had a technician and an X-ray.
Speaker 5 04:22
The thing, though, I was really all about him going to do the X-ray because he wouldn’t go otherwise. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6 04:32
He won’t. It’s actually our daughter, who’s studying to be a nurse, who really convinced me to get an X-ray. Well, such a…
Speaker 4 04:39
That’s such a dad thing. Like, that’s fine. Don’t worry. I don’t need any X-rays, right? Like, what are you, like from the 1950s? Like, that’s very…
Speaker 5 04:49
To make his appointments for him, like he’s seven, because he literally will not make these appointments for himself. I’m just saying, it’s true, though. He will otherwise just not ever see the doctor. Every appointment he has gone to, I have made for him.
Speaker 5 05:09
Is that not true?
Speaker 4 05:12
It is true. Behind every great doctor’s appointment with a man is a woman.
Speaker 6 05:18
I just really felt confident in my ability to snap my finger back, and here’s the— By the way, that’s insane that you did that.
Speaker 6 05:34
So the next day they did an X-ray. It was a fracture; they called it a spiral fracture, actually going around the finger. They said I had to see an orthopedist.
Speaker 6 05:39
So I made an appointment. Actually, I made this appointment, but it was really kind of made for me. It was made for me.
Speaker 4 05:39
Did you go see an orthodontist accidentally?
Speaker 6 05:42
I wish. And then she said, “You know what? You did a pretty good job. I’ve got to say, these injuries usually require surgery, but you got it pretty straight. So let’s see, come back in a week and see if it’s still straight.”
Speaker 6 05:59
If it’s crooked, then we’re going to break it again and do surgery. And so yesterday was the second week, and I went back, and lo and behold, it’s straight enough.
Speaker 6 06:12
That’s great. So no surgery?
Speaker 6 06:13
No surgery.
Speaker 4 06:13
That’s wonderful.
Speaker 4 06:13
I have to say this story just puts me in mind of, like, New York. You know, you think of it as this place where you can literally walk out your door and get anything you want anytime, day or night—except an X-ray. It’s like, that’s the city we’re known as: the city that never X-rays. So, you know, it’s a funny thing. It’s like X-rays are the most common. It’s like, it’s the most common thing, but it’s like, I went to the hospital, though. You could have, but you know, in New York, when you go to the hospital, you’re like clocking in and clocking out 17 hours later.
Speaker 4 06:55
100%. Like, that is a thing that other parts of the country do better—X-rays. That’s the one thing I’ll say. If you really are into X-rays, New York’s probably not…
Speaker 6 06:55
I don’t know why we don’t have the ability to just X-ray ourselves at home. We really should. It seems like such a… You can air fry, you can X-ray. I think…
Speaker 6 07:12
Kim, you were upset because when I tell the story, I say, like, I fell down, I hurt my finger, my finger was sideways. Kim saw it and she gasped and ran away.
Speaker 5 07:16
Yeah, I don’t know why you would think that. Like, when has that ever happened? You throwing up or getting squeamish? Well, me running away from a situation that requires calm, wise, sage-like thought processes.
Speaker 5 07:32
I think I master those. You know what?
Speaker 6 07:35
You do. But here’s the thing. So in real life, she was actually running to go get ice and Advil. But here’s the thing, usually when someone is running to get ice, they say, “I’m going to get some ice.” So here’s the thing…
Speaker 5 07:49
And ran away. I did. I did say, “I’m going to get some ice.” You did not hear me because you were in shock.
Speaker 6 07:57
Maybe I couldn’t hear you over the crack of me putting my finger back in place.
Speaker 4 08:01
Well… See, this is all going to make me throw up if you keep talking about cracking your finger. Every time you talk about it, I can hear the wet snap of the bone. Yeah. And knowing that it wasn’t just dislocated, but you were cracking a broken finger into place.
Speaker 4 08:13
It literally sounded like Lego bricks.
Speaker 6 08:17
Anyway, so that’s the finger update. We’re in good shape. Shirt update, Tim and I have made a decision. We feel that the best way to break the curse is to take the shirt and wear it on vacation.
Speaker 4 08:32
Oh, God. What could go wrong? That’s not true. No. Do we have like a buzzer sound we can throw in right now? What do you guys think?
Speaker 6 08:38
Let us know on Facebook or email us if you think it’s a good idea to wear the shirt on vacation.
Speaker 4 08:45
So that’s really a poll we’re doing.
Speaker 6 08:48
It could be. Anyway, that’s the updates for today. I feel like we’ve talked a lot about things…
Speaker 4 08:55
There’s been a little thing going on with some of our listeners that I’d like to address. Oh. I’d like to bring it out into the open. So there’s an episode we did a while back about, well, we’ve done a couple of episodes that take place in Mexico.
Speaker 4 09:09
Yes. And we have made the point a couple of times that, you know, despite the fact that we are talking about terrible things that happened to American tourists in Mexico, that Mexico is actually safer overall for Americans than America is for Americans.
Speaker 4 09:25
That you’re more likely to be murdered in America than you are in Mexico. Okay. And so a lot of people have reached out and said that they, you know, that we’ve just been drinking the Kool-Aid from the Mexican tourist board and they don’t believe it.
Speaker 4 09:40
And if we believe this and we don’t believe that. What? Yeah. And in fact, there was one comment that came in today on Spotify.
Speaker 6 09:48
What did they say? Because the comment I saw was, “OMG, could you get to the point already?” Well, there was that. Based on today’s conversation now.
Speaker 5 09:58
For the point.
Speaker 4 10:01
All right. Were we supposed to be talking about a murder case? Because we ain’t. So from ACBER 2001, if you genuinely think Mexico is safer than Texas and believe those bogus stats that are undoubtedly made up by the Mexican government, I feel bad for you.
Speaker 4 10:17
Tell me you haven’t looked into Mexico and their cartel problems. So here’s the thing. People, when they write in about this, they use the word “believe.” Do you really believe that? I don’t believe that.
Speaker 4 10:28
If you believe this, the word “believe” is a very interesting word because you use the word belief when you don’t have facts, right? So if you say to me, you know, if you say, “Oh, well, I was hanging out with Brad Pitt yesterday,” and I go, I don’t know.
Speaker 4 10:45
I don’t know if I believe you or I do believe you, but then he walks in or you show me a photo and you guys are buddies and I’m like, okay, now I don’t have to believe or not believe. It is a proven fact.
Speaker 4 10:56
Okay, whatever. I don’t, I don’t, you know what I’m saying? When you’re like, I don’t believe, okay. Well then provide alternate data that shows ours is wrong because here’s the thing. I went back and I looked in just to double-check because a few people have written in about this and 33 million Americans went to Mexico in 2023.
Speaker 4 11:19
120 of them were murdered, okay. Of those 120 that were murdered, many of them were involved in illicit activities, right? So they were exposed to cartels, right? They were involved in some way with cartels and there were some innocent civilians who were murdered.
Speaker 4 11:38
Texas has 30 million people. So almost the same number of people live in Texas as visited Mexico in 2023. And in 2023, 2064 Texan Americans were murdered. Now I love Texas. I have lived in Texas. I have visited Texas.
Speaker 4 11:54
I like the place. I have friends there, but these are the facts, right? These are not like, I believe, I feel. It is a fact that you are 20 times more likely as an American to be murdered in Texas than when you’re visiting Mexico.
Speaker 5 12:11
Look, Jerry, don’t be spitting facts. Okay, because ain’t nobody trying to hear facts. Oh, boy.
Speaker 4 12:17
I don’t know if nobody’s trying to hear facts, but some people are not. I’m just kidding. And then I imagine I’m gonna—oh, this is my final thought.
Speaker 6 12:23
This. Yeah, what do you got?
Speaker 4 12:27
Remember the Alamo.
Speaker 4 12:27
I do remember the Alamo. These are FBI stats. Houston is, if you take most of the rest of Texas out of it and factor in Houston, Houston is even worse. But the last thing I would say is, so then I imagined an airline called Aeromexico, which I think actually exists.
Speaker 4 12:44
And then I came up with an airline called AerLoneStar, probably exists somewhere. And so if you believe these stats, then every time an Aeromexican plane with 120 people on board crashes, and 17 AerLoneStar planes with 120 people on board crash, which airline would you get on?
Speaker 6 13:04
I don’t like math, Jerry, just tell me the answer.
Speaker 4 13:08
Get on the Mexican plane. No, listen. These are just facts, so that’s all. I just want people—like, I’m totally down for you disagreeing with us. Say, you think I’m drinking the Mexican government’s Kool-Aid, because that’s what I do.
Speaker 4 13:22
I go to Mexico and meet with their tourism board and come and do the show. But yeah, just come at me with some data. We’re happy to look at it. Not Kool-Aid, it would be the ritas. I’m drinking the ritas.
Speaker 4 13:34
It’s in those very colorful flavors. It’s time to move on. And they’re delicious. I don’t know why it took us into this place. Thanks, nerd.
Speaker 6 13:43
Okay, with all that in the rearview mirror, where are we slaying today, Kim?
Speaker 5 13:51
Today, our location takes place in the charming seaside gem of Sushi.
Speaker 5 13:51
Sushi? Sushi. Never heard of it. Where’s that?
Speaker 5 14:15
Approximately 90 minutes from Tokyo, located in Kanagawa, Japan, known for its upscale residential area and tranquil lifestyle near the sea and accessibility to Japan’s capital of Tokyo.
Speaker 5 14:15
This coastal city is host to many exquisite and alluring attractions and diverse activities from the lush hiking trails, the many marinas, and sailing enthusiasts to the cultural and historical temples and shrines.
Speaker 5 14:33
Most notably, Ichi Gawa Kayo Kahiichi Man, a peaceful meditative oasis. A special facet of this shrine is that one may bring their pet with them for quiet reflection if they so choose. Surrounded by a luxurious landscape in which to explore the great outdoors, this space is also home to many festivals and an active outdoor market.
Speaker 6 15:06
All right, so what could possibly go wrong in this meditative oasis?
Speaker 5 15:10
Japan is interesting, and we’re going to explore that. So, Lucy Blackmon and her friend Louise Phillip boarded a plane from Heathrow Airport and arrived in Tokyo, Japan. It was May 4, 2000, after midnight, Tokyo time, when the young women in their early 20s arrived with their tourist visa in hand, ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.
Speaker 5 15:39
Bored with their current set of circumstances and restless for adventure, Lucy was intrigued when she learned of a friend of hers that their sister— it was actually the woman that she traveled with—her sister, Emma, in fact, had hit pay dirt working in Japan as a hostess.
Speaker 5 16:03
And she would earn anywhere upwards from $150 to $400 a day. Oh, holy.
Speaker 6 16:12
Yes. Is that a coded word?
Speaker 4 16:15
It’s not as coded as you think. No, it’s not like I know where your head’s going, right. It’s actually not.
Speaker 5 16:22
It’s a very PG situation, at least on the face of it, right?
Speaker 4 16:27
It seems like on the face of it, being a hostess is you work in a club and then you get extra money like going to dinner or being someone’s date somewhere and there is definitely things can go farther but it’s not necessarily implied that they don’t have to.
Speaker 4 16:46
It’s not an escort type thing.
Speaker 6 16:49
Sounds like an escort.
Speaker 5 16:54
It does, but it’s the PG version of an escort.
Speaker 5 16:54
Right. So it’s called in Japanese kyabakura. It is the marriage of cabaret and club, which refers to the specific type of hostess club in Japan. And it is a huge part of Japanese nightlife.
Speaker 6 17:11
So it’s a club where you go with the hostess or that’s where you meet the hostess.
Speaker 5 17:16
It’s a club where you go to pretty much meet and shut up pretty women. That’s really what it is. We call it college. What are you doing at a college? Anyway, so in any event, Lucy had acquired a bit of debt and was spending lavishly on clothes, jewelry, going out, and a serious and a true Virgo to her core, she wanted to resolve this debt.
Speaker 5 17:52
But her free-spirited self wanted the adventure and she wasn’t the type to backpack or do any of that. And this sort of filled that bill.
Speaker 6 18:04
Yeah. Yeah. Adventure on one side, getting paid off on the other.
Speaker 5 18:09
Yeah. All right. I mean, she had worked for a French investment bank in London. And after a breakup with a trader, then landed a gig working with British Airways as a flight attendant. But weary from the perpetual jet lag and thirsty for a new adventure, but needing an income, this hostess-ing job sounded ideal.
Speaker 5 18:34
And this would be the next chapter for Lucy and her friend, Louise.
Speaker 6 18:39
Hostess in Japan, like, this is a white European woman, is that what you’re saying?
Speaker 5 18:45
Alone. I’m going there, yes. I mean, it’s part of it, not exclusively, but it is a thing.
Speaker 4 18:53
And the clubs, if you’re going to a club for that, that is the kind of hostess that’s working there.
Speaker 6 19:01
Gotcha. That’s what, that’s what I was getting at. It’s like, is there the European American version club and then, you know, Japanese women or, and is it Japanese guys or is it non-Japanese?
Speaker 5 19:12
It’s mostly Japanese men.
Speaker 4 19:16
And in Tokyo, it’s such a, this kind of whole world splinters into like, there’s clubs where you go and all the women are dressed as schoolgirls. There’s that kind of club. Right. There’s clubs where women are all dressed as anime.
Speaker 4 19:29
There’s clubs where they might be just more sophisticated, you know, older Japanese women. Like, so the clubs cater to clientele that wants a particular, to like hang out with a particular looking kind of woman.
Speaker 4 19:41
Wow.
Speaker 6 19:43
OK.
Speaker 4 19:43
So now you’re like, I’d like to go to Japan.
Speaker 6 19:47
I’d like to think what I’d want them dressed as. Okay, let’s… Knitted sweaters.
Speaker 5 19:57
I knitted sweaters. So Louise and Lucy, the women settled in their home at an apartment building known as Sasaki House, where they shared the space with a couple of other young foreigners. And the place would soon be christened by the two of them, the shit house, as the dwelling was anything but luxurious.
Speaker 5 20:20
They would promptly secure employment as a hostess at one of these rundown raggedy spots called Club Casablanca. And it was located in the thick of Roppongi, which is an eclectic, vibrant, and multifaceted district in central Japan.
Speaker 5 20:43
So the title or work as hostess in Japan gives like a just friends situation. It’s kind of in the vein of geisha, right?
Speaker 4 20:55
So I, I don’t know, like I always thought Geisha was a little more subservient kind of thing, like, but again, I don’t, I’m saying this, like, this is my very limit. I didn’t look into that. That was my understanding.
Speaker 4 21:07
But what do you, what did you, you did the research.
Speaker 5 21:09
I did. It is. It is.
Speaker 6 21:10
Did she do the research? She went to Japan, she got a job as both a geisha and a hostess.
Speaker 5 21:19
Why are you lying? Lies, lies, lies. Now, a geisha is actually trained. It’s, it’s, it’s specifically trained. They’re trained in dancing and almost like theater. OK. And their role is to be entertaining.
Speaker 5 21:35
OK. So it’s a 17th century thing. So it’s a little dated in that respect. But anyway, so they both got jobs as hostesses. Yes. Yes. So think spending money, time with a pretty woman who flirts, laughs at your jokes, plies you with drink and gives exceptional conversation and good company.
Speaker 5 21:58
She will be easy on the eyes. But the work is centered on social interaction. Huh? Yes. How come we don’t do that here? There really is no Western equivalent, is there not? I mean, it’s.
Speaker 6 22:13
It’s the guys you were just gonna expect, sir.
Speaker 4 22:15
Yeah, I can’t think of the PG version of that in the States.
Speaker 5 22:22
Yeah, there really is not a Western equivalent. Chatroulette. Right. But these places are really like hangouts.
Speaker 4 22:34
Sorry, I haven’t heard the word chatroulette in like, it’s been a while. Is that even still a thing? I don’t know.
Speaker 6 22:44
There’s definitely things like that. You see video, like, you know, there’s always, yeah, cycling through people and then there’s someone’s junk.
Speaker 4 22:55
Yay. Yay. Okay. Sorry, Kim.
Speaker 5 22:58
It’s okay. I understand you need the moment. So these places are really hangouts for wealthy businessmen looking to unwind after a long day and just want to chat up a pretty woman.
Speaker 5 23:12
Are they usually married or no?
Speaker 5 23:12
It’s a mix. A lot of them I would presume are married.
Speaker 7 23:18
Hypothetical situation.
Speaker 5 23:22
Shut that down. All right.
Speaker 6 23:25
I will indulge. No, no, if you’re married to a guy and that’s they’re doing that, are you happy?
Speaker 5 23:32
You know, that’s a very good question.
Speaker 6 23:35
I’m not happy. Are you okay with it? You know, and your answer is whether or not I’m buying a ticket to Japan. I’m just kidding. I would never. I would never. I would never.
Speaker 5 23:49
For the social, I would imagine too that this is an interesting place to bring people that you work with. Because you’re having drinks. And drinking is a huge component of this as well. I mean, the idea and the role of the hostess is to keep the guys coming back.
Speaker 5 24:08
Right.
Speaker 4 24:09
As I’m thinking it through, it’s pretty genius, right?
Speaker 4 24:18
Yeah, let’s be clear, it is not sex work. It’s not sex work. They’re not there to be dated or potentially married. They’re literally just there, like, come in, hang out. They’re like, entertainers.
Speaker 6 24:32
I mean, is it like a table with a bunch of people together or is it solo like in little booths or whatever?
Speaker 5 24:38
I mean, it runs the gamut. It’s coming in and seeing a woman or women and just chatting them up. Maybe you are curious about a particular woman, so you’ll talk to that woman, you’ll engage that woman.
Speaker 5 24:54
It’s a weird situation because it really is like going to see a paid friend. It’s like paying somebody to be your friend, to give a shit about what you’re talking about, to laugh at what you’re saying.
Speaker 6 25:10
Actually, that could be fun to go and pay to actually have a woman laugh at my jokes, unlike at home.
Speaker 5 25:16
Mm-hmm. Anyway, so I liken these establishments to the pimp house minus the sex.
Speaker 6 25:31
The pimp house?
Speaker 5 25:31
Yes, because listen, listen, hear me out. Hear me out.
Speaker 4 25:43
Oh, that we just introduced the term pimp house.
Speaker 5 25:31
Hear me out. Come on, Jerry. It’s true, though, because here’s the thing. The hostess is under great pressure to keep these men coming in.
Speaker 4 25:43
Yes, because their job is to keep them drinking and eating and spending money at this establishment.
Speaker 5 25:50
I definitely karaoke. Nice!
Speaker 4 25:53
Yeah. And it, but it’s also for the woman, because it’s, it’s not a sex work position and there’s other, and the women all do look out for each other in these places. So there isn’t, there’s sort of a safety for them.
Speaker 4 26:08
Like it’s not, it’s not considered, it’s not considered necessarily like a totally legal job, but it’s not a dangerous job.
Speaker 5 26:20
Right, it’s not commonly known as being.
Speaker 4 26:23
It’s not legal? Well, because most of the women working there are on tourist visas. Right. Which expire in 90 days. And so they’ll just keep working. So they’re not really supposed to be working.
Speaker 4 26:35
Okay, so it’s not the work that’s illegal.
Speaker 4 26:35
It’s just the people are maybe, yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re working kind of off the books, off the radar of the.
Speaker 6 26:41
Is it like the strip club where there’s a bouncer in case some guy gets a little drunk and gets a little handsy?
Speaker 4 26:47
I don’t know if they have bouncers per se, but they definitely have management and people there.
Speaker 5 26:52
I mean, and it’s clearly understood that this is not an establishment for sex, that that’s not what they’re. Yeah, I don’t think that’s ever understood.
Speaker 4 27:02
I feel like we’re spending so much time saying that, it’s starting to sound like this is an establishment for sex. We spent 25 minutes explaining this is not for sex. I think we can move on.
Speaker 6 27:14
Well, here’s the thing. We’ll find out whether there’s sex or not right after this quick break and a word from our sponsors. Hey, this is Adam. You know, of the three of us, I definitely eat the most.
Speaker 6 27:25
So I feel like I should be doing the food ads. But you know, as much as I like to eat, that’s how much Kim doesn’t like shopping, prepping, cooking, or cleaning up, which is fine. I don’t mind doing that.
Speaker 6 27:37
But during the week, I’m usually pretty slammed. She’s busy researching situations. So dinner time comes and we’re looking at each other and now what? At least that’s how we were until we discovered Factor.
Speaker 6 27:48
When it comes to variety, quality, convenience, ease, and value, Factor is pretty hard to beat. There’s plenty of other meal boxes out there that come with the ingredients, but only Factor has it. You don’t have to prep or cook at all.
Speaker 6 28:03
You just rip open the package, stick it in the oven or microwave, and two or three minutes later, you’ve got a delicious meal. There’s no pots and pans to clean up. It’s beautiful. So right now I’m doing keto and it’s really hard finding meal plans with good keto options.
Speaker 6 28:18
So not only does Factor kill it with dinners like spinach and mushroom chicken thighs, with creamy parmesan and white wine sauce, but they’ve also got options for breakfast, lunch, dinner, even snacks.
Speaker 6 28:30
And then they’ve got all these other great meal plans like chef’s choice, calorie smart, vegan, vegetarian, protein plus. Look, if you can’t find something to eat on Factor, I don’t know what to tell you.
Speaker 6 28:41
If you want to enjoy effortless meal support for your busy lifestyle, head over to factormeals.com/slacation50 and use code slacation50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next box.
Speaker 6 28:59
That’s code slacation50 at factormeals.com/slacation50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next box while your subscription is active. Trust me, you’re gonna love it.
Speaker 1 29:17
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them. Except one. A woman known as Dear, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I’m Lucy Sheriff.
Speaker 1 29:32
Over the past four years, I’ve spoken with Dear’s family and friends. And I’ve discovered that everyone has a different version of events. Hear the story on Where’s Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 5 29:51
And we’re back, and let me just say there’s no sex. In the champagne. In the champagne. I am now.
Speaker 4 29:57
Certain that there’s sex.
Speaker 5 30:00
So what happened interestingly enough? It’s that’s my job. It’s also another thing, too. They do present them with gifts. They go on what they call dohan, which is a date outside the establishment because the idea is that the hostess is to cultivate these relationships outside of the club so that he comes back.
Speaker 4 30:33
And just to say with that, okay, so now you’re thinking that starts to sound like…
Speaker 6 30:38
Sounds like the in and out.
Speaker 4 30:39
Secret venue. So it kind of is and it isn’t, right? Because the girls have all, the girls all know what their limits are. So some girls will be happy to go and have dinner dates and go to a show with you or, but that’s it.
Speaker 4 30:54
They’re not, they are not doing sex work. Some of the girls will, right?
Speaker 6 31:01
So you say right as if I’m like, yeah, my life is here.
Speaker 4 31:10
So, some of the girls will, but it’s kind of known who does what and the clients tell. There seems like there’s sort of an informal or maybe it is formal kind of matching process of like client to woman depending on what the client wants from these outside dates.
Speaker 6 31:28
But you guys realize now it’s taken a little bit of a turn. Like it started out as this wholesome in the club. Guys come in, hehe, everybody’s singing karaoke, having a couple drinks. Then some of the girls will go outside the club and some of the girls will also…
Speaker 5 31:44
The point that I was really trying to make is that there is a clear distinction between the hostess club and the establishments that offer sexual services. Prostitution in, and I say prostitution in quotes, there are many businesses that offer non-intercourse services like oral or anal sex.
Speaker 5 32:10
And let me just say.
Speaker 4 32:12
Wow, you just got some kind of information.
Speaker 5 32:16
But here’s the thing that’s very fascinating about Japan. The anti-prostitution law of 1956 prohibits only vaginal sex. A little fun fact I thought you’d all like to know.
Speaker 4 32:32
Okay, so last thing I just want to say on this for me is Japanese culture, it’s just important to understand it’s incredibly different than American culture, right? So the idea as foreign as it may seem to us that people might spend money to have friend dates, it’s a thing there.
Speaker 4 32:51
In fact, in Japan, there’s things like very popular cat cafes where people after work, between leaving work and going home, will spend money to go and hang out at a cafe that’s filled with cats they can play with, right?
Speaker 4 33:06
This is a very common thing. These are very foreign ideas to us as Americans, but the culture there, it’s very much part of it. So… In any case, it’s very common.
Speaker 5 33:14
In any case, part of the ritual of working as a hostess in Japan is securing what is known as a dohan. And a dohan is a paid date between hostess and a customer outside the club. It provides an incentive to keep the guy coming back and bonuses for the hostess.
Speaker 5 33:36
All right?
Speaker 6 33:37
I can’t believe that that is the big, like, like in America, like, Oh, can you get the guy to date you outside the club? Like every stripper is sending off every asshole trying to get to the date outside the club.
Speaker 6 33:51
And here it’s like, this is the thing that we’re working towards. Yeah. You know, it’s kind of hilarious that the difference in culture, I guess.
Speaker 4 33:58
That’s a huge cultural, it’s a more polite and like differential culture.
Speaker 6 34:02
I think the guy will come and, you know, see you outside the club. Oh, God.
Speaker 5 34:07
Well, look, it’s true. I mean, you know, shortly after Lucy started working at Casablanca, there was a middle-aged businessman in his 40s by the name of Ken, and he would become one of her regular dependable, I guess you could say clients, who took her out regularly for a dohan, and they would exchange emails, and they would flirt a little back and forth, and he would tell her how pretty she is,
Speaker 5 34:38
and, you know, it was just sort of that kind of thing. And Ken was a Japanese man? Yes. Okay. Initially, though, Lucy did struggle, and the work was challenging and exhausting. The late-night partying and drinking was taking its toll, and Lucy’s self-esteem would take a hit, and she would go down that rabbit hole of self-loathing, which, honestly, I don’t know how you not go down that rabbit hole in that type of work,
Speaker 5 35:08
where you kind of have to constantly be effervescent and beautiful. That sounds exhausting. So, Lucy had recorded in her diary sort of this long self-deprecating rant where she was complaining that she felt fat and ugly, and just making these harsh comparisons between herself and her friend, Louise, who she was viewing as thriving and doing well and getting a lot of attention.
Speaker 5 35:41
I was going to ask, how’s the
Speaker 6 35:42
friend doing. She’s just like, but stuff everywhere. Everything’s great. No.
Speaker 5 35:46
She’s a hostess, there’s no butt stuff or any of that. She’s just doing her dates. That’s, yeah, she’s just going on dohan. What are you thinking about? Anyway, and Louise, who had reaped the benefits of her work, had been gifted a cell phone from one of the gentlemen who she had been going on dohan with.
Speaker 5 36:06
And this was a big deal since you could not get a cell phone if you didn’t have a Japanese passport or a visa lasting more than 90 days. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it was a big… It was also 2000, so…
Speaker 5 36:20
Yeah, so it was a huge deal. So they would settle in, just kind of getting used to their routine. Soon Lucy would meet a tall, handsome, muscular, strapping Marine. She began dating this handsome Marine who was stationed in Yaka Shuka aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, and she was smitten, and they would begin dating.
Speaker 5 36:43
How old is she? She’s 21.
Speaker 6 36:45
Twenty-one. Okay. And the soldier is…
Speaker 5 36:49
Soldier is around the same age, yeah.
Speaker 6 36:51
All right, so it’s not a full Kitty Hawk situation. Yeah.
Speaker 5 36:53
Yeah, and having a cute guy that’s into you can do wonders for your mood and this of course picked up her spirits and…
Speaker 6 37:07
Sounds like she likes them.
Speaker 5 37:11
She did. She liked her like…
Speaker 4 37:07
They were dating that wasn’t like he wasn’t in the club.
Speaker 5 37:11
No, no, she was just an American
Speaker 4 37:11
station. Thank you for clarifying that.
Speaker 6 37:17
It was a mild afternoon, July 1st, 2000, and Lucy was getting ready for the full day ahead, which was later to be followed up with a girls night out, filled with revelry and dancing outside of the club situation, just for her and her friends.
Speaker 5 37:35
And she was very much looking forward to this. But the first order of the day included a lunch date or rather a dohan with a gentleman that she had met and was engaging at the Casablanca.
Speaker 5 37:53
Not him?
Speaker 5 37:53
No, this was somebody else. He had called, he was running late, but he was on his way. And she taking advantage of the extra time would finish getting ready and would leave this Sasaki house, donning her cute little black dress, fashionable sunglasses, and an Armani watch, which I think was a gift to her from her dohan Ken.
Speaker 5 38:18
Yeah, so she wasn’t doing like terribly. No, no, look, show me with the exception of our kid, show me a young woman who isn’t self-loathing. Oh my God, I’m so fat. I’m ugly. I’m this, I’m that. That’s just any PMS situation.
Speaker 5 38:36
So, but no, she was okay. Okay. And- But she had to do this quick- But yeah, she had to do this because these are kind of part of the job. You have to have a certain amount of dohan. You have to have a certain amount of money that you’re bringing into the club.
Speaker 5 38:53
So- Does, can I ask-
Speaker 6 38:55
Yeah. Does her Marine boyfriend know she works at the club and goes on these dohan and all that stuff? And is he cool? I’m sure that he is.
Speaker 5 39:03
is aware of it. Okay.
Speaker 4 39:05
She’s about to go off. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, by the way, like the work she’s doing. It’s not like, you know, not that any kind of, any work in that vein is anything to be ashamed of, but like there’s no reason for her not to tell him.
Speaker 6 39:17
Okay, well, yeah, but some guys don’t necessarily oh you so you go on dates during the afternoon with other guys Oh cool. Well, it’s just kind of every guy is into that.
Speaker 5 39:26
Would think well, I’m sure that you know, it’s it’s very clear what the role of these clubs are and really it’s just
Speaker 6 39:34
Well, she knows that and the culture knows that, but I’m saying some American Marine might not be so cool with it. That’s all I’m saying.
Speaker 5 39:41
I think he understood, that’s a, that’s a, that’s.
Speaker 6 39:47
It’s speculation. Okay, well, we’ll find out what happens on this date or whatever right after this quick break and a word from our sponsor.
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Speaker 6 41:41
Okay, we’re back. I’m excited to know what’s going on, because this is pretty suspenseful.
Speaker 5 41:46
It is. There’s a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 6 41:46
There is a lot of stuff going on. Oh, that’s what we got. So at just after 5 p.m., Louise gets a call from her happy and cheerful friend, Lucy, informing her that she’s on her way to the, quote, seaside, unquote, for lunch, and that she will be back in time for their evening plans, and will reach out again when she’s heading home.
Speaker 5 42:13
And Louise spends the day shopping, and she’d actually picked out some cute accessories for their night out on the town, some stickers and some glitter to add to their makeup, which I think is adorable.
Speaker 5 42:30
Shortly after 7 p.m., Lucy contacts Louise to let her know that she will be back within an hour, just as she promised. And she shares the news with Louise that she too now has a new cell phone and a bottle of Dom Perignon, which had been gifted to her by her dohan.
Speaker 5 42:53
And Lucy was thrilled and was looking forward to sharing that bottle of champagne with her friend. And it was a good feeling. She was no longer at the mercy of the pink pay phone that they all shared, her and her housemates, at the shit house.
Speaker 5 43:12
Lucy then called her sexy Marine boyfriend and left a message, happily confirming a plan to see him the next day, so.
Speaker 6 43:21
What happened? I’m guessing…
Speaker 5 43:28
So, 9 p.m. came and went. And as one might suspect, Louise promptly panicked. And not knowing what else to do, she headed to the club where they both worked, Casablanca, and raised the alarm bell that Lucy had not come back from her dohan.
Speaker 5 43:52
And Louise was told that there really was no cause for alarm, as the night was still relatively young. But this did little to quell her overbearing sense of dread. She pounded the pavement, hitting all the spots in that area, the Deep Blue, Geronimo’s.
Speaker 5 44:14
She even went to the club they were planning to visit that night, even though it would have been odd if she went there and Lucy was there, but she didn’t know what else to do. And not having the proper visa, she was a little anxious about going to the police.
Speaker 6 44:31
And the cell phone, I guess, had not been hooked up yet or well.
Speaker 5 44:35
she couldn’t get a hold of her. Oh, so she was trying to pull that off her. So ultimately when the weekend came and went, Louise on the morning of July 3rd filed a missing persons report with the Abazu police station.
Speaker 5 44:52
The police were dismissive and did not give much credence to the missing foreigner. Who was an adult after all?
Speaker 4 45:02
Right, and there was one other little detail I’ll throw in which is that the day after the night when they were all supposed to go out, Louise got a phone call.
Speaker 7 45:12
That’s right.
Speaker 4 45:13
And the phone call was not from Lucy, but it was from a man who said, I just want to let you know that Lucy’s fine. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 5 45:26
God. Yes. And he identified himself as Akira Tagaki.
Speaker 4 45:31
Yeah, I’m Akira Tagaki. I’m letting you know that your friend is fine, but she’s decided to join a religious cult. What? And does not want to be contacted. So please do not try to contact her.
Speaker 6 45:44
The Newly Risen. The Newly Risen is the name of the cult? Yes. Okay. That’s weird. You think? Or at least the mystery solved.
Speaker 4 45:56
And she’s fine. So that’s it. Thank you for listening. We’ll see you on the next occasion.
Speaker 5 46:01
But anyway, as any good friend, somebody’s calling to tell you that. I mean, Louise was like,
Speaker 6 46:08
Is that what prompted to go to the police or no?
Speaker 4 46:11
No, the go to the police was that Lucy never showed up. She couldn’t reach, like, she didn’t, like, Louise didn’t go, oh, okay, cool. She’s with the New Risen cult and everything. Like, she didn’t, she was like, what the hell was that?
Speaker 4 46:22
Like, didn’t make any sense. She didn’t make any sense that Lucy would be with a cult. Why wouldn’t Lucy have made the call? So none of it made sense.
Speaker 6 46:29
Did Louise go undercover and join the…
Speaker 5 46:31
cult? Well, it’s interesting that you say that because part of her interaction with this caller was asking to speak to her friend. And when she was told that her friend wasn’t feeling well, that Lucy wasn’t feeling well and could not talk, she asked if she too could join the cult.
Speaker 5 46:52
And he didn’t really take that seriously. He was really focused on the fact that Lucy was starting a new life and that she would not be coming back.
Speaker 4 47:06
And Kiranish Dha also said he wouldn’t give any contact information for himself. Like Luis asked several times, what’s your phone number? How do we reach you?
Speaker 6 47:16
What number showed up on her phone? Just sort of.
Speaker 4 47:19
Um, I don’t know. I don’t know if a number showed up or not, actually. Yeah, I- But she didn’t-
Speaker 5 47:23
Actually, what came up was no caller ID, because I did.
Speaker 4 47:28
Kim just mentioned something about the police, which is interesting. Louise goes to the police and says, my friend Lucy is now missing for two days. Here in the States, there’s a certain amount of time that before the police will say, okay, 24 hours or 48?
Speaker 4 47:45
I actually don’t. I don’t know. Some like that. They will then do a missing person. Even in the States, depending on the circumstances, is the person older? Are they younger? There’s a little bit of discretion here.
Speaker 4 48:01
The police in Japan were just completely dismissed. They were like, oh, she’s a hostess.
Speaker 5 48:08
Yeah, they did not. They could give a shit.
Speaker 4 48:11
They just did not care.
Speaker 6 48:12
Is it because she was fine or because she’s a hostess or both or?
Speaker 4 48:16
Yeah. In their minds, they’re like, oh, she’s probably just with some guy and she’s working here illegally and she’s working in their minds, this sort of seedy situation. She’s just not on the police radar.
Speaker 4 48:33
And there’s this interesting thing when you start to think about like, in America, if a pretty blonde white girl goes missing, all hands on deck. In fact, even if she goes missing in another country, it’s all hands on deck.
Speaker 4 48:49
And in Japan, if she had been a young Japanese woman, there would have been a much bigger, there would have been any attention paid to it. So it’s this interesting, you’re looking from the outside, oh, there’s this sort of almost a reverse version of a racial approach to how things are.
Speaker 6 49:11
out. Got to even it out. Did you tell the cops though about this cult call? Because that’s what sort of spins it into a weird thing. What do they say?
Speaker 5 49:22
I mean, there’s many different facets to this. I mean, the thing is, is that the local police, they just were not inclined to really do anything. And they just continued to just say, oh, she’ll be back.
Speaker 5 49:38
She’s an adult. She can go and do whatever she wants. They could not appreciate the sense of urgency.
Speaker 4 49:49
And so, you know, as days turn into weeks, now her family, who’s back in the UK, are like, wait, what is going on? Like, where is she? The police aren’t, yeah, so her father, this guy, Tim Blackman, flies over from the UK and he just, he comes over like guns blazing, basically.
Speaker 4 50:12
And he’s like, I am going to get the attention that my daughter’s disappearance deserves because I want to find her. And he proceeds to go to the media, right? So he starts to like get the media involved.
Speaker 4 50:27
He’s a very successful property developer, so he has money so he can come over and kind of like start this campaign. He gets crazy numbers of posters made that he plasters all over Tokyo. He holds press conferences almost daily.
Speaker 5 50:42
Yeah, he was even confronted by a-
Speaker 7 50:44
a Japanese police officer for posting the flyers. Like vandalism?
Speaker 5 50:52
Yeah.
Speaker 4 50:53
Yeah. Like, God forbid we should do anything to find my daughter. And in fact, at the time, Tony Blair was the prime minister of England, or UK, and he was in Japan for a G8 summit. And because Tim Blackman, Lucy’s dad, is a prominent real estate guy and kind of has connections, he’s actually able to get a meeting with Tony Blair while in Japan.
Speaker 4 51:17
And that just throws fuel on the fire to the point where, like, there’s a media frenzy, and now the Tokyo police kind of have to do…
Speaker 5 51:29
something. Right. It got their attention. Let’s put it this way. So shortly after, and by shortly, I mean like when the police, the local police were notified, and Louise had then notified Lucy’s mother.
Speaker 5 51:46
Lucy is the oldest of three, and her sister was the first one to head out to Japan. And she, along with an ex-boyfriend and friend of Lucy, they went to Tokyo and began the search for her. So they started that search, and then she would reach out to Tim.
Speaker 5 52:11
The dad. Yeah. And it was, as Jerry said, when Tim came, he was able to sort of shake it up a little bit. Gotcha.
Speaker 4 52:21
He just went for like, they were the girls were trying. They were working like the investigation. He worked the media.
Speaker 6 52:27
Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So I’m curious, is this cult a real thing? Like does it exist or is it like just sort of barely a thing? And is it, does it even play into this? Or is that just meant to get people to stop looking for hers?
Speaker 5 52:42
I think when I first encountered that detail, I immediately knew that was some fucking bullshit.
Speaker 7 52:51
Shit.
Speaker 4 52:52
It does. It seems like bullshit. It just seems like something someone says like to be like, oh, she’s gone now.
Speaker 6 52:56
Did they know about the Marine?
Speaker 5 52:58
Yes, they did. And he, of course, was questioned and nothing. Even at some point, her dohan Ken was also questioned.
Speaker 6 53:11
So, the dohan, she went on the date with the day she went missing.
Speaker 4 53:17
Hey, you want to know a little about him? I’d love to.
Speaker 5 53:26
He’s a guy who speaks perfect English. He says his name is Kaz, K-A-Z.
Speaker 4 53:29
We have numerous aliases.
Speaker 4 53:33
Yeah, but let’s just say at this point, he’s known as Kaz, to Lucy and Louise and the other girls at the-
Speaker 6 53:38
Casablanca club guy.
Speaker 5 53:40
Well, he’s a frequent club guy all around, he makes the rounds.
Speaker 4 53:44
He’s known for being a dashing, he’s an Armani suit guy. He says he went to a prestigious American university that he owns a Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, and a Mercedes-Benz. He had introduced himself as Kaz Toulouse.
Speaker 4 54:02
The first time they met, they sat and had drinks for an hour, brandy, very sophisticated. That’s so Kaz. Kaz owns a bunch of properties, including some beach resort apartment homes. He is known for taking hostesses for nice drives to the seaside.
Speaker 4 54:26
He has a condo. Exactly. This is a guy who, this is what he does.
Speaker 6 54:33
Excited I’m going to the seaside.
Speaker 4 54:37
Exactly. Okay, right.
Speaker 4 54:37
So that is the guy that she was with that day. And then they know this, the police.
Speaker 6 54:50
Well, they know that she was with a guy named Kaz.
Speaker 5 54:50
Yeah, but they don’t have any other details. They don’t know anything else. They don’t check him out.
Speaker 4 54:54
Well, they can’t go check him out because they don’t know who he is, like it’s not his real name.
Speaker 6 55:00
Oh, so he doesn’t come back into the club. How do you find this guy?
Speaker 4 55:08
So good police work would say, what would you do? What would you do to try and find this guy? What is the one thing that Lucy’s done or he’s done that could provide some sort of connection to him? Well, there was a cell phone.
Speaker 4 55:24
There was a cell phone. No, in America, you would like immediately go and start investigating who owns the cell phone. Where is the cell phone now? The Tokyo police don’t do that right away.
Speaker 4 55:50
The first thing they do is let’s trace this phone.
Speaker 6 55:54
But I suppose they don’t have cameras in these clubs and stuff, right? I don’t know.
Speaker 4 55:58
No, actually, I’ve never, Kim, did you ever see anything about, I haven’t seen anything about cameras in one place.
Speaker 6 56:03
It’s in Japan, it doesn’t have a camera.
Speaker 5 56:05
Yeah, no, they don’t have cameras like that. That was an interesting thing because Tim had actually even had mentioned that, given that England has cameras everywhere. The thing was that this guy was under the radar and things started to come to light.
Speaker 4 56:23
So when they finally track down the cell phone and figure out, they do, and they get a name, and the name is coming up right after this quick break.
Speaker 10 56:38
Hey there, I’m James, host of Dakota Spotlight. We’re back with a new season, You Killed Chris, a friend’s fight for justice. It’s a chilling throwback to 1968. A college freshman, Christine Rothschild is murdered on campus during her morning walk.
Speaker 10 56:52
Join us as we dive into this unsolved case and follow a friend’s relentless pursuit of the truth all the way from the Flower Power era to today. Binge You Killed Chris on your favorite app or at DakotaSpotlight.com.
Speaker 11 57:07
Hi, I’m Matt Harris. Seton Tucker and I post the podcast Impact of Influence, which for two years covered in depth, Alec Murdoch, who was eventually convicted in 2023 of murdering his wife Maggie and son Paul.
Speaker 11 57:20
That story continues to evolve and we will cover that. Plus, we will tell you stories of other true crime events that have happened in the South. Please join us on Impact of Influence and give us a follow on the Impact of Influence Facebook page.
Speaker 4 57:36
Okay. So the Tokyo police, because, you know, Lucy’s dad has come and said, like, someone has to do something to help find my daughter. It’s been weeks. She’s been missing. They finally traced the phone that she had called Louise on and said, when she’d said, I’ll be home in an hour.
Speaker 4 57:49
Oh, so she actually.
Speaker 6 57:51
actually use that phone.
Speaker 4 57:52
Yeah. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. So she used that phone. So the police finally trace the phone that was used to call Louise. Okay. And a name comes up and the name is Joji.
Speaker 6 58:06
Oh, but, uh, okay. Who’s that?
Speaker 4 58:08
They quickly find out a few things about him. So they figure out that this guy, Joji Obara, was a very successful real estate guy who had made tens of millions of dollars in the mid-90s. But then when the Japanese real estate market crashed, he ended up with debts that were like double what he basically was ruined financially.
Speaker 4 58:34
He still owns some of these properties.
Speaker 5 58:38
His father had made a lot of money and had left significant wealth.
Speaker 6 58:47
It’s familiar. It’s familiar. It’s familiar.
Speaker 5 58:51
I can’t quite put my finger on it. Anyway, and he left significant wealth to his three sons.
Speaker 4 58:58
His father was Fred Obara, so his father had made a bunch of money in the taxi business and also real estate. They figure out that Joji Obara was actually born Kim Soong.
Speaker 5 59:13
Kim Sung Jong, and that was his name as a Korean baby.
Speaker 4 59:18
Yes. He was then enrolled into prestigious school, private schools in Tokyo at age 15. He went into a prep school and he actually changed his name again. Yes. Shisho Hoshiyama because he wanted a more Japanese sounding name because Koreans who live in Japan with Korean names experience discrimination.
Speaker 4 59:45
So he changed his name to Shisho Hoshiyama and then he became a naturalized Japanese citizen and changed his name again to Joji Obara.
Speaker 5 59:58
Yeah.
Speaker 4 59:59
Okay, so that’s his third name, but in the clubs, he calls himself Kaz. The other thing that changing your name three times does is it makes it kind of hard to keep track of what you’re up to. And who you are.
Speaker 4 01:00:16
And who you are. And where you are. And what you’re doing. Another interesting thing about this guy.
Speaker 5 01:00:23
There’s very little photographs of him. He is very off the grid with finding recent photographs of this guy.
Speaker 4 01:00:35
There’s two photos exist of him, and he refused even when he was at Keio University in Japan. Wouldn’t sit for a photo in the yearbook. No yearbook photo, nothing. Oh, wow. So here’s like, here’s one of the photos.
Speaker 4 01:00:48
Wait, yearbook?
Speaker 6 01:00:49
like high school. Yeah. So even back then he was like, I’m going to be shady.
Speaker 4 01:00:54
We have a life of shadiness. The only two pictures we could find of this guy are this one. OK. OK.
Speaker 6 01:01:02
Yeah.
Speaker 4 01:01:03
And then this.
Speaker 6 01:01:04
Does not look like a picture he posed for. That looks like a cult leader a little bit, yeah. Cool shades and it looks like a scene from a movie or something.
Speaker 4 01:01:19
Yeah, he does look like he’s in a movie in that one. We’ll post those on Facebook. So now they know who she was with, but they don’t know where he is. They don’t have any evidence that anything bad has happened to her, other than the fact that she’s just missing, but there’s no…
Speaker 4 01:01:38
If not, I don’t know.
Speaker 6 01:01:38
Definitive anything. And the name Akira, whatever, called and said she joined the cult. That’s the only time we’ve heard that name, right? So far.
Speaker 4 01:01:52
So when Kira Nishida called Luis and said your friend Lucy’s in a cult now and don’t worry about her and don’t contact her, he was not pretending to be the person who she’s on the phone with. He’s taking on like yet another identity.
Speaker 4 01:02:07
Okay.
Speaker 5 01:02:08
Yeah, he doesn’t really even identify who he is as far as his connection even to Lucy other than to just say she’s joining this cult and she’s met a guru and that was just the name he gave. Well, he gave the name.
Speaker 5 01:02:28
He gave the name. That’s the name he gave. I mean, he operated under- Hi, this is John Smith. Your friend joined the cult? It felt like every- it’s as if you’re walking around and with every person you meet you give a different name.
Speaker 5 01:02:43
A different name.
Speaker 4 01:02:45
So now you’ve got a name. Now you know who this guy is. This is a guy who they, you know, by all appearances and by his lifestyle is moving in like elite circles in Japan, right? So he’s moving around like in these expensive clubs.
Speaker 4 01:03:01
He’s wearing expensive clothes. He’s driving expensive cars. He’s got all these, these apartments by the sea. So what’s the next thing you do for the cops?
Speaker 6 01:03:11
We go check out some of these apartments. Ding, ding, ding.
Speaker 4 01:03:14
I could be a policeman. You’re like a cop. Too bad you weren’t a Japanese cop and did this earlier because when they… Do you want to do this part or do you want me?
Speaker 5 01:03:25
Well, they actually went to, um, well, they did show up at his apartment and knocked on the door and he came to the door sort of breathless and odd. Okay. And he was nervous and sweating. And they had asked him if they could come in and he was irate and told them no.
Speaker 5 01:03:55
And they were responding to a call that he was making a lot of noise.
Speaker 5 01:04:11
Oh, this isn’t connected to the missing girl. It’s not connected in the sense that they’re going there because of-
Speaker 6 01:04:15
A noise complaint?
Speaker 5 01:04:15
Right. But they’re going there because-
Speaker 6 01:04:17
Or they’re pretending it’s an
Speaker 6 01:04:15
It’s a noise complaint. No, it is.
Speaker 4 01:04:17
We should actually stop here and say something about the Japanese criminal justice system, which is really important.
Speaker 6 01:04:23
Top tier. Yes. So we do need to.
Speaker 4 01:04:29
Talk about that for a second. So in Japan, there’s not typically, in rare circumstances, you can have trial by jury, but more often than not, you have trial by, they call it a panel of three judges. So there’s no jury, there’s just three judges.
Speaker 4 01:04:45
And the other interesting thing is they will typically not arrest someone in Japan until they are like 99% absolutely sure that that person is guilty.
Speaker 4 01:05:07
Oh, okay. So they don’t like here, we kind of do it the other way.
Speaker 4 01:05:20
We’re like, oh, you were near the crime when it happened? Right. And then investigate.
Speaker 4 01:05:20
In Japan, they typically won’t arrest them until they know that they’re guilty. And so when you look at the, I didn’t know this until I started looking at this case. When you look at the Japanese court system, close to 100% of cases that are brought are convictions because they won’t bring them unless they think they’re guilty.
Speaker 4 01:05:41
And then there’s also this weird bias in the system that, I don’t know if honor code is the right word, but like that the trial judges in order to honor the work of the prosecutors who are honoring the work of the police are like, yeah, if they’re here, they must be guilty.
Speaker 6 01:05:56
So they knew for a fact, he had made noise. They definitely knew he had made noise. They were like, we’re going in on that noise complaint. But they’re not arresting him to bring him in because they don’t have anything at this point that would make them think he’s, they don’t even have a crime. They wouldn’t even know a crime that he’s done, right?
Speaker 4 01:06:12
There’s a girl who’s missing. Right. So they’re basically the guys like, I’m upset you’re here. I don’t want you to come in. Yes, I was making some noise. And he comes to the door with a very strange item, which is what, Kim?
Speaker 4 01:06:28
A frozen dog.
Speaker 5 01:06:29
You
Speaker 6 01:06:30
What a frozen dog what do you mean he comes to the door with a frozen dog?
Speaker 4 01:06:34
He has a German Shepherd frozen in a block of ice filled with roses and a dead German Shepherd that he’s like, this is my dog and I was, he’s died and I was encasing him in ice. Yeah. He was bringing it to the doctor.
Speaker 6 01:06:49
Meditative pet place.
Speaker 5 01:06:51
Well, no, but he’s a real.
Speaker 4 01:06:54
Really melt your heart.
Speaker 5 01:06:55
Is planning to give the dog a special burial.
Speaker 6 01:07:00
I see you have a dog. Ah, wait.
Speaker 4 01:07:04
Go ahead. Just sit with that for a second. Yeah, so they’re not questioning him about the missing girl who he’s the last person she was seen with. They’re there for a noise complaint and he shoes them away by showing up at the door with a German shepherd and a block of ice with roses.
Speaker 4 01:07:21
This works in America also, by the way. If you ever get the cops come to your door for anything, just have a dead animal, a block of ice, a little delirious.
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Speaker 6 01:07:29
Oh, missing girl. I thought you said there was a missing dog here. Here’s the dog. I found the dog.
Speaker 4 01:07:35
This is insane. Yeah, it’s insane. And it gets even more insane. I mean, we’re at the precipice here of some really horrible shit. I can. So yes, the German Shepherd and the Block of Ice, but the roses, crazy.
Speaker 4 01:07:48
It gets even crazier. And the craziest part of this is how hard it’s gonna be to get this guy connected to Lucy.
Speaker 7 01:07:56
Yeah.
Speaker 6 01:07:56
Oh boy. All right. Well, I guess it sounds like we’re going to be back for part two of this craziness. We’ll see you on the next location. Just so you know, merch is coming. If you like what you hear, please subscribe.
Speaker 6 01:08:11
You can support the show and not hear the ads. Come give us reviews on Apple or Spotify. We always love those. And
Speaker 4 01:08:22
I will say we do love those. We especially love Spotify reviews. Apple listeners, we love you, but we’re getting so much support from our friends at Spotify who’ve been featuring the show on their homepages.
Speaker 4 01:08:35
They’ve been featuring us on special sections of True Crime. That is true. They have been, yeah, it’s been great. Apple, great, but Spotify. Spotify, we love you guys. And so if you’re at all able to listen on Spotify, check it out.
Speaker 4 01:08:48
There’s also amazing polls you can participate in on Spotify. That’s true. I make little polls that do not exist on Apple. So if you want to be in our polls, go to Spotify.
Speaker 6 01:08:57
Gotcha. Okay, great. And yeah, and join Slake Haters only on Facebook, because that way you have access to us, and we respond to all your fun. Anyway, thanks, guys.
Speaker 1 01:09:10
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dear, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I’m Lucy Sheriff.
Speaker 1 01:09:25
Over the past four years, I’ve spoken with Dear’s family and friends, and I’ve discovered that everyone has a different version of events. Hear the story on Where’s Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
