Speaker 1 [00:00]
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women vanished. I managed to uncover what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dear, whose estate is valued in millions of dollars. I’m Lucy Sherriff.
Speaker 1 [00:15]
Over the past four years, I’ve corresponded with Dear’s family and friends, and I’ve come to realise that each person has a distinct perception of events. To hear the story on Where’s Dear?, tune into the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you normally stream your podcasts.
Speaker 2 [00:34]
Hello, I’m Lale Arakoglou, the host of Women Who Travel. Women Who Travel is a transportive podcast for anyone with a curiosity about the world. We speak with adventurers and athletes.
Speaker 3 [00:46]
I’ve participated in the Godzone Adventure Race on New Zealand’s South Island, navigating through the mountains in the southern Alps. That was eight days spent immersed in the wilderness. And we also chat with chefs.
Speaker 1 [00:59]
Food embodies home, it’s comfort.
Speaker 4 [01:00]
It epitomises love.
Speaker 2 [01:05]
We also share dispatches from our listeners.
Speaker 1 [01:10]
They’re full of
Speaker 3 [01:12]
These…
Speaker 2 [01:14]
I’d call them phantoms of the past. From rampaging elephants to sled dog training, we hear all sorts of stories. The dogs will snuggle right up with you, making things somewhat cosy. We release new episodes of Women Who Travel every Thursday.
Speaker 2 [01:30]
Join us wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 5 [01:46]
Welcome back, Body Bags. We’re back with Slaycation, unravelling murders and mysterious deaths that occur whilst on vacation. I am your co-host, Adam Tex Davis, and as always, I’m accompanied by my wonderful wife, Kim.
Speaker 5 [02:00]
Hello. And our dear friend, Jerry. Hello, everyone. You know, we were right in the midst of an insane case from our last episode. I think we should dive right back into that.
Speaker 6 [02:16]
Absolutely. However, if you didn’t catch the story and you’re joining us now, I suggest you head back to last week’s episode, give that a listen and then join us here.
Speaker 5 [02:31]
Yes, I agree. Jerry, do you want to give a quick recap?
Speaker 4 [02:35]
Certainly. A 21-year-old British woman named Lucy Blackman and her friend Louise went to Tokyo to work as hostesses in a club. They provided companionship, a friendly date or someone to dine with, to these gentlemen.
Speaker 4 [02:54]
Lucy met a man named Kaz, who took her on a special date, a dinner by the seaside. Following that date, no one has heard from her. Her friend Louise received a peculiar phone call from a man claiming to be Akira Nishida, stating that Lucy had joined a cult and wouldn’t be returning.
Speaker 4 [03:19]
Louise didn’t believe this. Lucy’s family arrived from the UK and have been stirring up the media in an attempt to prod the police into action, as they have been rather inactive up to this point.
Speaker 4 [03:32]
We left off where the police had identified that a phone call made to Louise, Lucy’s friend, came from a man named Joji Obara. They visited his apartment not to investigate the missing girl but due to a noise complaint.
Speaker 4 [03:54]
And what happened while they were there, Kim?
Speaker 6 [03:58]
Well, he had a frozen dog. Yes, he’d frozen his dog, hoping that someday science might… This is what he claimed.
Speaker 6 [04:23]
Okay.
Speaker 4 [04:25]
So, the police concluded that the cause of the noise must have been him dealing with his frozen dog. A very strange way to deflect the police, but it worked.
Speaker 4 [04:36]
Dog gone it, right? Managed to put the cops on ice.
Speaker 6 [04:41]
Well, what also began happening as the case was gaining traction, is that women were coming forward with stories about having gone on a dolehan and then waking up, finding themselves incapacitated.
Speaker 4 [05:04]
Feeling woozy and sore. Oh, by the way, a dolehan, if you weren’t here last week or don’t remember, is a hostess date that happens outside of the Hostess Club.
Speaker 5 [05:14]
But some might say that if you didn’t know that, you should go back and listen.
Speaker 6 [05:19]
Yes, I…
Speaker 5 [05:21]
Just in case. So, women are coming forward about this Kaz guy.
Speaker 6 [05:25]
Yes, they’re coming. At this point, women are merely saying, “I went on a dolehan, was having a drink, and then woke up a day later in nothing but my underwear.”
Speaker 5 [05:45]
He’s Bill Cazby. Well,
Speaker 6 [05:49]
Indeed, there are certainly some similarities to the operations here.
Speaker 4 [05:55]
This Joji Obara has been incredibly careful about not having his photo taken throughout his life. It’s almost as if he knew it would set off alarm bells. So there are only a few grainy images of him.
Speaker 4 [06:12]
So when you ask if all these other hostesses, these other women coming forward, are pointing out this Kaz guy, the answer is — they don’t know, because there’s no clear photo of him. They’re simply saying, “That’s what happened to me. I was working as a hostess. This guy took me on a dohan, and then I woke up disoriented and sore.”
Speaker 5 [06:35]
I believe you mentioned he used a different name with each girl.
Speaker 6 [06:39]
Yes, he had a different identity for each encounter.
Speaker 5 [06:45]
Alright, this guy is undoubtedly a Virgo.
Speaker 6 [06:51]
Hold on, he’s a Leo, if we’re being precise.
Speaker 4 [06:54]
Actually, I’m on the cusp of Leo and Virgo. So, okay, so now the police, now that all these other women are coming forward and sharing their experiences, decide it’s high time they raid his properties and see if anything turns up.
Speaker 4 [07:15]
Can there be anything at the property of this guy, even if it’s just more pets? They don’t know, but at this point, he seems like a sketchy character, yet because there are no photos of him, there’s no woman definitively saying, “That’s the guy.”
Speaker 6 [07:31]
Apart from a sketch of him and a woman who had filed a complaint, prompting them to start investigating him.
Speaker 4 [07:46]
Yes, and the other point to note is that the reason the police don’t have a record of all these women filing complaints is that most of them are young European women in their early 20s, on tourist visas, and are in the country illegally.
Speaker 4 [08:03]
They know they won’t be taken seriously and fear they’ll just be deported for overstaying their tourist visas. Hence, the authorities finally felt they had enough to raid his properties.
Speaker 4 [08:18]
What they discovered in one of his apartments was so shocking; it even stunned the most hardened detectives on the police force.
Speaker 5 [08:31]
We’ll find out what that is right after this quick break.
Speaker 6 [08:34]
Hi, this is Kim, and I won’t lie, while I love to knit, I do not love to cook. Which is why I absolutely adore Factor. Factor’s no-prep, no-mess, delicious, chef-crafted meals are perfect…
[Note: The advertisement section has been truncated to keep the response concise.]
Speaker 5 [10:36]
Alright, we’re back, and we’re about to delve into the horrid findings in Kaz’s apartment.
Speaker 4 [10:42]
Yes, it was quite dreadful what they found.
Speaker 6 [10:46]
Indeed, they discovered pictures and videos of him with various women — hours and hours of footage of him sexually assaulting and raping hundreds of women.
Speaker 5 [11:05]
So, these girls who were experiencing memory lapses at the hostess club, he was drugging them?
Speaker 4 [11:10]
Yes, the videos he created show him drugging and raping them whilst they’re unconscious.
Speaker 6 [11:17]
His hoarding was ultimately his undoing.
Speaker 4 [11:21]
The journals are filled with entries detailing where he found the girl, what he calls “conquest play”. This is his fantasy. He believes he’s participating in “conquest play” while assaulting and raping these women.
Speaker 4 [11:38]
Each journal entry is filled with seething hatred for women, especially foreign hostesses. He’s been doing this for decades.
Speaker 5 [11:54]
But not necessarily killing them, right?
Speaker 6 [12:00]
Correct. A woman named Carita Ridgeway had gone on a dohan with him and ended up in the hospital in 1992. He contacted her sister, alleging she was in hospital with food poisoning from bad oysters and was near death.
Speaker 4 [12:32]
The name he used when he called her sister Samantha to notify her of her sister’s condition was Akira Nishida.
Speaker 5 [12:42]
Right, he couldn’t think of another name quickly enough.
Speaker 4 [12:45]
And he kept calling Samantha and was very polite.
Speaker 5 [12:49]
Was Samantha also in Japan?
Speaker 6 [12:54]
Yes, Samantha and her sister were both in Japan.
Speaker 5 [12:57]
So, he’s a monster who’s also trying to be considerate?
Speaker 6 [13:01]
It’s a very strange and unique situation. It’s intriguing because in Japanese culture, you’re almost expected to confess your sins to the police officer if you get caught.
Speaker 6 [13:18]
So, if they catch you, they expect you to confess to what you’ve done.
Speaker 5 [13:24]
I was saying that him calling the sister for no reason… well, there was a reason, right?
Speaker 4 [13:28]
Because, in Corita’s case, the same thing happened as with Lucy and Louise. Lucy said she was going on a date and would be back later.
Speaker 4 [13:40]
In 1992, the same thing happened with Corita. She told Samantha that she was going on a date, and then the first call came from Akira Nishida, saying that she would spend the weekend with him.
Speaker 4 [13:55]
A day later, he called again, saying that she actually had food poisoning from seafood and was in the hospital, not doing well. Eventually, Samantha got the information from him about which hospital Corita was in, and it turned out she was indeed in a hospital.
Speaker 4 [14:21]
And she did…
Speaker 6 [14:22]
She had been diagnosed with acute liver failure.
Speaker 4 [14:26]
So, what does that mean? The problem at this point is we don’t know because the police are not treating it as a crime.
Speaker 6 [14:34]
It’s not being treated as a crime. They’re predominantly taking this gentleman at his word.
Speaker 4 [14:42]
This gentleman, who is only on the phone and doesn’t exist in real life.
Speaker 5 [14:46]
No, I get that, but I’m just trying to understand why, if your modus operandi is to get these hostesses to go on these dolehans with you, drug them, have your way with them, then leave them somewhere and retreat, why would he additionally call?
Speaker 4 [15:06]
It’s not about being an honourable monster. It’s because, in this case, they believe that the dose of whatever he was using — perhaps chloroform — reacted badly with Corita.
Speaker 4 [15:21]
So instead of just knocking her unconscious and coming back, she wouldn’t come back. His mention of her having shellfish poisoning was basically him creating a self-alibi, so this would never be investigated as a crime.
Speaker 4 [15:37]
To put it plainly, “Oh, it was a Dohan. She ate some bad fish and had a reaction.”
Speaker 5 [15:42]
So, in case they were able to trace him back to the incident, and the other girls can’t remember anything. No. So, they can’t say that a crime occurred. They just know that something strange happened. You mentioned one woman did recall that like…
Speaker 6 [15:57]
I think you can always understand that if you’re out on a date with someone and then you wake up in your underwear with no recollection of how you ended up there, and the last thing you remember is taking a sip of something, you know something unsavoury occurred.
Speaker 6 [16:21]
But many of these women also hesitated to report to the police, largely because of visa issues, disbelief, and they can’t really remember what happened.
Speaker 4 [16:36]
It’s not just visa issues, it’s also about being a foreigner. There’s a bit of this sentiment, “Oh, these white foreign girls…” And remember, he’s considered a wealthy and influential man in Tokyo. They assume he’s always going to be believed over them.
Speaker 4 [16:56]
Okay, wow, this is messed up. He had also altered his face, as you mentioned. The two photos you showed did not look like the same man.
Speaker 4 [17:12]
No, we should note that he had surgery to remove the slant from his eyes to make them look more Western.
Speaker 5 [17:15]
There’s a name for that surgery, right? But, was he trying to de-Asian himself or just change his look? I mean, if you’re an Asian guy and then you make your eyes look significantly more Western, you’ll stand out more, I would assume.
Speaker 4 [17:32]
It’s not clear why he did it, but he did do the surgery.
Speaker 5 [17:36]
So, “I went out with this guy, but he has American eyes.”
Speaker 5 [17:32]
You were not clear on why you did it. Like, yeah, I went out of the sky, he’s…
Speaker 5 [17:36]
This guy, but he’s got American eyes.
Speaker 4 [17:38]
Well, he had the surgery. But going back to Carita, this case from 1992 is suddenly back on everyone’s mind because of what’s happened to Lucy.
Speaker 6 [17:52]
Exactly. And her fiance at the time had heard of the case and intuitively knew that there must be a connection.
Speaker 4 [18:09]
As soon as her fiancé heard about this Lucy Blackman case, he was sure.
Speaker 5 [18:14]
What happened to you, and so on… Right. Okay. Where was Carita from?
Speaker 4 [18:17]
He didn’t get to say that to Carita because she didn’t…
Speaker 5 [18:22]
Australia. He couldn’t say it to Carita because…
Speaker 4 [18:25]
Carita didn’t survive the hospital in 1992. Yes, sadly, her parents came and…
Speaker 5 [18:33]
Her fiance also came, this is the fake food poisoning whatever…
Speaker 4 [18:38]
Unfortunately, she eventually went into total organ failure and they had to make the horrible decision to…
Speaker 6 [18:45]
Remove life support.
Speaker 4 [18:49]
They pleaded with the police to investigate, saying it just didn’t feel right, but the police pushed it aside, saying she was a hostess and these things happen.
Speaker 5 [19:00]
So the boyfriend or the fiance saw this case years later and he went to the police?
Speaker 4 [19:07]
I’m not sure if he went to the police, but he somehow raised the alarm. He’s like, this is the same…
Speaker 5 [19:14]
…thing that happened to you and so on. Right. Okay, so he can’t say that because she already passed away, unfortunately.
Speaker 6 [19:22]
She was one of many.
Speaker 5 [19:25]
So who’s Samantha? Samantha was Carita’s sister, right?
Speaker 4 [19:29]
Yes, that’s correct. So just to clarify, this case in 1992 involved a hostess named Carita. She had gone on a dohan with this same man. Instead of returning home as she was supposed to, she ended up in the hospital and her sister Samantha was the one who was contacted.
Speaker 5 [19:44]
So, okay. So now the police have gone into the house, they found a treasure trove of tapes, diaries, DVDs.
Speaker 4 [19:55]
Total depravity. This guy is just a monster. So they got him…
Speaker 6 [20:01]
Although they were able to arrest and detain him, it wasn’t as straightforward. The interesting thing about him too, was…
Speaker 5 [20:11]
It’s clear, by the way, is it clearly him on the video? Like it’s clearly him. Was he wearing a mask? So you couldn’t see like there’s these tapes…
Speaker 5 [20:22]
No, I just bought these from… No, they’re his tapes.
Speaker 6 [20:26]
He, of course, was very much proclaiming his innocence and stating that this was consensual.
Speaker 4 [20:37]
He doesn’t deny the encounters, he says the…
Speaker 6 [20:40]
Right, the encounters were consensual.
Speaker 5 [20:42]
Well, the drugs were just to spice up the… Well, again…
Speaker 6 [20:47]
It’s so bizarre…
Speaker 5 [20:49]
And you don’t have him on tape giving the girl the drugs, you just have them…
Speaker 6 [20:53]
Actually, there is a video of him giving Corita chloroform. He’s seen doing that. In fact, he even jotted down that he gave her too much chloroform.
Speaker 6 [21:10]
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 [21:12]
Shit. So they got him on Carita. Yeah. And she died. So they do, they have him on that. But the question is, if he’s saying she consented to being drugged and me having sex with her while she was drugged, and if I just happened to give her too much chloroform, is that murder?
Speaker 4 [21:35]
What? That’s atrocious.
Speaker 5 [21:38]
That’s ridiculous. To every, the whole case is. That is ridiculous. She consented to being chloroformed.
Speaker 4 [21:44]
Well, that was what he claimed, and…
Speaker 6 [21:47]
The interesting thing too about Japanese culture is when a defendant is on trial, they can offer financial compensation.
Speaker 6 [22:13]
Money to the family of the victim.
Speaker 5 [22:22]
To the family. Oh, okay.
Speaker 4 [22:23]
It’s called a mimikin and the idea is it’s an honourable way of apologising to the family of the victim. It’s substantial.
Speaker 4 [22:44]
It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars, typically.
Speaker 5 [22:47]
Okay, and this keeps you from going to prison?
Speaker 4 [22:49]
No, no, you still go to prison. It’s just taken into consideration. It can lessen the severity of your sentence.
Speaker 6 [22:54]
You can get a lesser sentence, time taken off, that’s all taken into consideration.
Speaker 5 [23:01]
So here’s a million dollars for one week, roughly kind of yeah.
Speaker 6 [23:05]
Pretty much.
Speaker 4 [23:06]
But just going back for a second to this whole story, where, like, Corita, it’s a good thing that they figured out that he had killed Corita,
Speaker 6 [23:17]
To make that connection.
Speaker 4 [23:17]
That connection is made and they have it on video.
Speaker 5 [23:21]
I don’t know if Lucy’s deceased yet. We don’t. Lucy’s missing. But hang on, in the meantime, they’re not holding him or anything. He’s free? No, they do arrest him. Good, okay.
Speaker 4 [23:33]
Yeah. In October of 2020, he’s arrested based on the evidence that shows him having, you know, killed Corita.
Speaker 5 [23:40]
And now they’re working on him to find out what happened to Lucy, right? Yeah.
Speaker 6 [23:45]
He will, he acknowledges that he has interacted with Lucy, but he of course denies anything having to do with her disappearance.
Speaker 4 [24:00]
But they do discover that a couple of days before they connect with him, he had been seen wandering around his beachside area with a shovel. And a day or two before the police arrest him, he asked somebody, he went to someone and was like, can I buy a boat from you?
Speaker 4 [24:20]
And also, what’s the deepest part of the bay? Nothing suspicious there. Going to Home Depot and buying like a tarp, gloves. Like, it’s like, wait, what? All right. So, you know, but it’s all circumstantial.
Speaker 4 [24:35]
Okay, he wanted a boat. Yeah, a lot of people want boats. He wanted to know the deepest part of the bay. He had a shovel.
Speaker 5 [24:38]
He had a shovel.
Speaker 4 [24:39]
A little pal. So, you know, and again, like this is just another example of the bad policing is in February, which is now, it’s been from July, so it’s what, like six or seven months later, they finally do a thorough search of his property area.
Speaker 4 [24:56]
A beachfront? Yeah. And like, what was it, Kim? Like a hundred yards from his house? It was…
Speaker 6 [25:01]
Just me like 328 feet feet.
Speaker 5 [25:06]
300 feet is a hundred is a hundred.
Speaker 4 [25:09]
Yeah, like you said. Great. Thanks. I thought you didn’t like maths.
Speaker 5 [25:15]
Well, like, a hundred yards, because it’s…
Speaker 4 [25:17]
a football field. Okay. So a hundred yards from his, uh, from his house. There’s a…
Speaker 6 [25:24]
There’s kind of a cave like a cave.
Speaker 4 [25:27]
Yeah, which we wouldn’t know as a cop. You wouldn’t think maybe I should go look in that cave, right? On the property of the guy that right.
Speaker 5 [25:36]
Did he build the cave?
Speaker 4 [25:38]
There’s this thing that says, no police, boys only. So they go in the cave, and inside the cave, they find.
Speaker 6 [25:46]
uh dismembered remains, yeah.
Speaker 4 [25:50]
10 different bags, and it’s Lucy. Oh, Jesus.
Speaker 5 [25:56]
Yeah. In bags in a cave. Yeah.
Speaker 4 [26:00]
Underneath the bathtub. Underneath the bathtub in the cave. So this guy… But there’s a bathtub in the cave? There’s a bathtub in the cave. I don’t… Yes. Why? Who knows? There’s also a dead dog in an ice.
Speaker 4 [26:11]
This guy’s out of his fucking mind. Right. He’s a monster. And finding her at this point in this condition just raises a whole bunch of problems.
Speaker 5 [26:22]
Which we’ll find out about right after this quick break and a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 7 [26:30]
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Speaker 7 [26:53]
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Speaker 3 [27:00]
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Speaker 7 [27:06]
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Speaker 8 [27:29]
Hi, I’m Matt Harris. Seton Tucker and I host 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 8 [27:42]
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 6 [27:58]
And we’re back. You were saying, Jerry? Thank you.
Speaker 4 [28:01]
Thank you, Kim. That was delightful. Unfortunately, they found Lucy’s remains in a cave just a couple hundred feet from his apartment. And the problem is that the remains at this point, it’s been seven months.
Speaker 4 [28:16]
And so you can…
Speaker 6 [28:17]
They can’t quite, yeah, I mean, decomposition, the whole…
Speaker 5 [28:22]
Getting like a sense of how she died, right? But it’s definitely her. They were able to identify. Yes, they were able to. Is there a picture of this cave anywhere? Like I’m curious what this cave on a beachfront looks like.
Speaker 4 [28:34]
Of their cave, pulling up the cave. So the problem with the case against him is that there is no…
Speaker 6 [28:44]
Everything is circumstantial. And even though he’s alleged to have dismembered her body and done all this, there’s no DNA linking him. Their diary entry? No. But there is a picture. They did find a photograph that he’d taken of her.
Speaker 6 [29:05]
Alive or dead? Alive. But the thing is, that again does not… Right.
Speaker 5 [29:11]
We know she was with him, but they don’t know, right.
Speaker 4 [29:14]
But the cops are like, the prosecutors feel like they have enough, okay? Because he’s the last guy seen with her, he’s assaulted and raped hundreds of women while they’re, well, after he’s drugged them, he’s murdered another woman.
Speaker 4 [29:30]
He’s used the same exact name, Akira Nishida, right? As his fake name for both of them to try and explain why they’re not coming home. And her body was found dismembered just next to his house, where he had been seen with shovels and asking about the deepest part of the bay.
Speaker 4 [29:49]
So, so good policing tells you that’s a lot of coincidences, but I got to say, it’s a pretty strong case, right? So they’re like, now remember in Japan, you don’t bring the, the prosecution doesn’t bring charges unless they’re a hundred percent certain that the person is guilty.
Speaker 4 [30:09]
They have an almost a hundred percent conviction rate in Japanese courts.
Speaker 6 [30:14]
And their thing is more like you’re guilty until proven innocent.
Speaker 5 [30:19]
Well, you’re innocent until you admit that you’re guilty. Yeah, that’s…
Speaker 4 [30:22]
Right. So they bring the charges against him for murdering Lucy.
Speaker 5 [30:27]
Okay, so they’re like, okay, we’ll be 98% sure of that today.
Speaker 4 [30:31]
Yeah, we’re close. We’re close enough. So they bring the charges, which is like such a relief to her family. Sure. Now, meanwhile, his, this offering that Kim had mentioned, the money. So Lucy’s parents have been divorced since the ’90s.
Speaker 4 [30:44]
They’re not together anymore.
Speaker 6 [30:45]
And they have a really acrimonious relationship. They are not friends.
Speaker 4 [30:52]
So one of Joji’s wealthy friends comes up with this almost half a million yen offer, which is just this very traditional thing in Japanese, the Japanese court system, is that you or someone close to you will make this offering.
Speaker 4 [31:10]
And so Tim, for some reason, I could not figure out why Tim because Tim seems like he’s a wealthy real estate guy, her dad, he decides to accept the offer.
Speaker 5 [31:22]
Oh, I thought you were going to say like the mom swoops in and I’ll take it. Mom is like, she’s actually furious. She’s like, she tells him, right.
Speaker 6 [31:30]
She’s like she tells them she tells them to go fuck themselves. Yeah.
Speaker 4 [31:34]
Right. And the sister, Lucy’s sisters don’t take the money. Thank you.
Speaker 5 [31:39]
Okay, what is taking the money to do? Is it immediately less than his sentence or something?
Speaker 4 [31:44]
It’s not like a sentence lessener automatically, it’s just taken into consideration during the sentence. Just remember also, it’s not just sentencing, it’s the judges are the jury. Right, three judges.
Speaker 4 [31:57]
So the judges have to be made aware that this payment has been made. Gotcha. And so, in the process of accepting this payment, Tim essentially breaks the united front that the family had had up until that point.
Speaker 4 [32:11]
So Lucy’s family had been united, even though the father and mother were acrimonious.
Speaker 6 [32:18]
They just stayed away from each other. When he was in Japan, she was not, and when- They took shifts. Pretty much, but it was mostly her sister who was there. And Louise stayed there too? I don’t know if Louise stayed.
Speaker 6 [32:31]
Louise stayed, but she ended up- Leaving? Yeah, at some point.
Speaker 5 [32:36]
So the father taking the money was sort of a big deal.
Speaker 6 [32:39]
It was a big deal because it really angered the mother in particular.
Speaker 4 [32:43]
The other thing that made it even stranger that he took it, and I think he tried to say later he didn’t understand this, is he had to sign a document and part of the process of accepting this kind of payment is you sign a document saying I’ve accepted this payment from the defendants as a show of honour, but included in this document are some minor things that turn out to be not that minor that say things like, I acknowledge this is a circumstantial case.
Speaker 6 [33:12]
He signed it. It felt like he didn’t even look.
Speaker 4 [33:15]
Like, and he’s like, well, I didn’t understand. It was like a Japanese court thing. But basically he signs his name on a thing that says, I accept this payment on behalf of my family. And I acknowledge that the evidence is circumstantial, that the case is, there’s no witnesses.
Speaker 5 [33:31]
But who puts that in the document? Does the court do it or is the defendant doing it? I don’t know, like you put in all these things and whatever. I don’t know, that’s fucking crazy. Alright, so he fucks their own case, in a way, a little, a little bit by taking this and signing this…
Speaker 6 [33:45]
Well, the interesting thing, though, is that Joji never concedes that he was responsible. He never admits it. It’s not even his money, it’s his friend’s. Right. But the guise of presenting the money comes more from, I’m sorry for your loss, and I feel terrible that this happened to you.
Speaker 6 [34:05]
I didn’t have anything to do with it, but…
Speaker 5 [34:08]
I was the last one to see her. So I feel, I feel bad. So my friend will give you some money. Yeah. What a guy. Yeah.
Speaker 4 [34:17]
Dude, this thing goes on for like six years. Yeah, the trial.
Speaker 6 [34:21]
Milk is for everyone.
Speaker 4 [34:23]
Forever. Like in six years. And in the end, the decision comes down. In 2007?
Speaker 5 [34:31]
Was it? Yes. And we’ll hear about that right after this quick break and a word from our sponsor. All right. We’re back with the decision after seven, six.
Speaker 4 [34:44]
Six or seven years and just family drama and just craziness and all this stuff.
Speaker 5 [34:51]
Uh, before you give me the decision, were any of the women’s other complaints taken into consideration? Was any of that added to this or? Yes. Corita. Well, besides Corita.
Speaker 5 [35:03]
Right. Nine other rapes. Nine other rapes. And they know it’s like they saw themselves on tape and they were like, oh, that’s, yeah. Right. Okay. So all this came out. Okay.
Speaker 4 [35:14]
Yeah, so within the case against Shoji Obara, there’s the nine women who’d been assaulted and Lucy’s murder and the manslaughter. They went for manslaughter on Karida because…
Speaker 5 [35:29]
Wasn’t direct.
Speaker 4 [35:30]
He, yeah, oops, I screwed it, like, okay, fine. So the decision comes down. He is convicted of the nine rapes. Oh. He is convicted of the manslaughter of Corita Ridway, and he is found acquitted and innocent of Lucy’s murder.
Speaker 5 [35:47]
Because of the document or because they just couldn’t.
Speaker 6 [35:50]
It really just came down to not being able to physically link him to a crime.
Speaker 4 [35:57]
There’s no physical evidence or any witness connecting him to her being dead.
Speaker 5 [36:05]
Right. Oh my God.
Speaker 4 [36:08]
And, you know, a lot of people say that the document that the dad signed didn’t necessarily help because it’s, but who knows? I mean, these judges seemed like, it was also a very unusual, like for the Japanese court system for a charge to, to, acquittals are very rare, I guess is what, like it’s very rare.
Speaker 4 [36:31]
Yeah. And especially in this case where it seems so clear. So then what happened?
Speaker 6 [36:36]
Ken? Well, he, again, was maintaining his innocence, but he was sentenced to life in prison. Oh, for all the other stuff. Right, right. And he would continue to appeal, and he’s still in prison today.
Speaker 4 [36:57]
He is. And it turned out that there was some evidence that wasn’t admitted at trial for the prosecution regarding Lucy regarding Lucy. And so her family actually appealed in about a year later. And, um, what was the evidence?
Speaker 4 [37:14]
There was just, uh, actually I couldn’t figure out what that was. I just said there was, did you, did you come, did you see what it was? More tapes. I just, I just said, there was some evidence that wasn’t, I couldn’t figure out what it was.
Speaker 4 [37:26]
So basically after he was acquitted, there was a huge outcry, both in Japan and the UK, that this was just, justice was not served. Everyone was like, he, he killed her. I mean, it’s like, it’s not even any reasonable person.
Speaker 4 [37:39]
Was this like a huge thing in Japan? Huge in Japan, huge and the UK didn’t really show up here.
Speaker 6 [37:45]
No, I don’t. Yeah. Because I don’t remember seeing you.
Speaker 4 [37:47]
Neither. But Jacob, this morning when I brought it up, he’s like, oh yeah, I remember that case was huge, huge. And so there was such an outcry that they actually did continue investigating. They found that some evidence had not been introduced.
Speaker 4 [38:00]
They appealed. There was an appeal was launched. And in 2008, Obara, he was actually finally found guilty of Lucy, but he was found guilty of abducting her, right, dismembering her and disposing of her body.
Speaker 4 [38:17]
But what’s missing.
Speaker 5 [38:20]
Uh, giving her a cell phone? Uh… Throwing her birthday party? What? Yeah, you know. Dismembering is not a form of murder? No. Well, now she’s already dead.
Speaker 4 [38:34]
Right. So they, they know that he had her, he was last, so that’s the abduction. Right. Somehow they linked him to the bags and the body parts. So that’s the dismembering and then the disposing.
Speaker 4 [38:47]
They just can’t, they just were like unwilling to take the leap. Like some magical ghost band came and murdered her. Right. You know, like it’s, Oh my God. It’s like the…
Speaker 5 [38:59]
John Wayne Gacy when they dig up the bodies. And he’s like, the only thing I did was run a graveyard without a license. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody dug, somebody dug all these graves and put the bodies in there.
Speaker 5 [39:09]
Okay. Uh, that’s…
Speaker 4 [39:10]
Fucked. Yeah. The upside is that dad used the money to start a charity. Right. The foundation.
Speaker 6 [39:21]
To help English nationals travelling abroad when they encounter problems.
Speaker 5 [39:29]
Yeah, I’m sure the sister and the wife made him do that.
Speaker 4 [39:32]
I don’t know. It seems like it’s the money.
Speaker 5 [39:35]
Yeah.
Speaker 6 [39:37]
God damn it. Yeah. They had a very difficult relationship. She resented his having that foundation and being connected to. Oh, okay.
Speaker 5 [39:51]
But, yeah.
Speaker 4 [39:53]
But also, it did lead to some reforms in the Japanese criminal justice system, specifically around how they investigate crimes involving foreigners and especially young women who are working in this industry.
Speaker 5 [40:07]
So is this industry still going? You’re asking for a friend.
Speaker 4 [40:14]
You looking at you looking at tickets to Tokyo over there Jesus that’s that’s not your take away
Speaker 6 [40:19]
Holy crap. Well, what is the takeaway?
Speaker 4 [40:23]
Man, I don’t know do you have takeaway on this one I struggle with this one because it’s there’s some there’s some like low hanging fruit but it’s not fair and
Speaker 5 [40:34]
You talk about that kind of work.
Speaker 6 [40:37]
Kind of work, just even, you know, getting in a car with, I mean, what are you going to do? It’s so many, it’s being, it’s done and people, nothing happens.
Speaker 5 [40:48]
Right. I mean, look, if you equate it to like, okay, so there’s strip clubs here in the US. It is like strictly prohibited. The strippers are not to date the men. They’re not to see them afterwards. They get walked out to their car to make sure these guys are not lurking outside.
Speaker 5 [41:04]
You seem to know. I do know. You know, it’s like if a stripper is dating a guy, like they’ll get fired. Like there’s in the club and then there’s outside the club. Right. And the fact that this world blends those two and encourages outside the club activity is kind of strange to me.
Speaker 5 [41:24]
However, you know, that doesn’t give anybody the right, like this guy was a monster.
Speaker 6 [41:31]
Well, the thing is, when you’re talking about, really, the question then becomes, how do you protect yourself from a predator? Right. How do you know if this person is a predator, especially in this type of situation where the very nature of your interaction is hanging out, getting to know them, chatting them up.
Speaker 6 [41:57]
How do you know?
Speaker 5 [41:58]
But at the same time, this could have just been a regular date. They could have read somewhere, had dinner, and then, hey, you want to come back to my seaside condo? It doesn’t.
Speaker 4 [42:05]
Yeah, I agree. It doesn’t matter that it happened from that club. The guy was a predator. Right. And if he didn’t find a woman there to… Right. If it wasn’t her… He would have found someone else somewhere else.
Speaker 4 [42:19]
So… you
Speaker 5 [42:20]
Yeah, monsters, those monsters exist.
Speaker 6 [42:23]
I mean, I got the sense that a lot of it was to just sort of satiate this disgusting kink of having sex with unconscious women. That is fucked up.
Speaker 5 [42:38]
Yeah, and like what is the point of that but also the murder is interesting right because this guy had tapes Hundreds of women like you said so his mo wasn’t really to murder them
Speaker 4 [42:51]
They don’t think he, it wasn’t an intentional, like he wasn’t setting out to murder her. He over, she either reacted to whatever the drug was or he used too much.
Speaker 6 [43:00]
Very clear in the in the case of Corita Ridgeway. Yeah. With the note that he left and the media. She got to get people’s medical history. Because that was the thing that he would do. If the woman stirred or would start to wake up, he would use chloroform to…
Speaker 6 [43:19]
While he’s assaulting her. Right. So that they don’t wake up. So I don’t know. I mean, I guess…
Speaker 5 [43:27]
‘Cause in a way he, he got caught because of his own thing. It’s like this guy’s a monster. He was because he’s hoarding that also gave a phone. He gave her a phone that was then used to trace him. He used the same name that was then used to corroborate.
Speaker 4 [43:43]
He after, in a million years, he didn’t think anyone was going to investigate. He was operating within the understanding that in the system, he could do whatever he wanted because he was a wealthy Japanese native, and at the hostesses, he was particularly preying on them because he knew the cops didn’t take them serious and that he had gotten away with it.
Speaker 4 [44:06]
He knew that they would be scared to go to the cops, the cops would take their word. So, he was operating in a very manipulative and specific way where he thought, what’s the big deal? Give someone a phone.
Speaker 4 [44:19]
He never thought, unless Lucy’s dad had come over and stirred up the media and met with Tony Blair, that was his undoing, was that someone’s dad was finding like, I’m going to come over and stir up some shit and figure out what’s going on because this is not right.
Speaker 5 [44:37]
Yeah, took outside intervention.
Speaker 6 [44:39]
Well, he made it front and center in the media. Right.
Speaker 5 [44:42]
But you did say that the Japanese people were upset.
Speaker 4 [44:47]
Excited about this. Because this is the first time they’d heard about it, right? Because it had never come to light that this whole situation was that these young women, because they were never taken seriously, the Japanese people never even knew these issues were going on.
Speaker 5 [45:02]
So there’s a disconnect between the culture of the people and what the government or the law enforcement are doing. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 4 [45:10]
Yeah, there was an op, there was a thing happening in law enforcement that when the Japanese people learned about it were absolutely outraged that this is how it was handled.
Speaker 5 [45:22]
Oh, yeah, OK. All right. What do you got, Kimmy?
Speaker 6 [45:28]
It’s just so sad to think that this woman should still be living her life, raising kids. And at the same time, I don’t even know what specific takeaway I would be able to offer in a situation like this because, again, you’re talking an active predator on the loose.
Speaker 6 [45:50]
And how do you move in the world treating everything in every situation as if you’re about to encounter a predator? I mean, how do you do that?
Speaker 5 [46:03]
A question. Right, if you treat everybody like they’re a predator, you can’t live your life. No. Yeah, if you have your guard too down, then.
Speaker 6 [46:10]
I mean, and all she was doing was just her job in essence, just being engaging and fun and, you know, how was she to even begin to anticipate something like this? Yeah, and this doesn’t happen there.
Speaker 6 [46:27]
That’s the other thing too. Japan is a very polite culture. So you would not really even think that something like that could happen. Because she, in her home, as in our home, we would probably think, nah, I’m not getting in the car with that guy.
Speaker 6 [46:48]
Let’s meet at Starbucks, okay? Right.
Speaker 4 [46:52]
Right, but the job entailed going to this seaside.
Speaker 6 [46:56]
Resort. Right. It entailed interacting with your customers. It entailed getting to know them. It entailed forming some relationship with them. And he’s so clearly, that’s what he did though, he exploited that.
Speaker 4 [47:14]
Exploited the entire system right and that’s that’s my takeaway from this is Not about her. She didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Clarita. I think for me the takeaway is when you look at how Criminal justice and police are set up in almost every country.
Speaker 4 [47:33]
They’re typically set up by men who are natives of that Country and who are the rule the part of the ruling class whatever that means in any particular country And so the systems are designed in a way that if you are not that kind of person and especially if you’re a woman Who has an especially woman who is of a different?
Speaker 4 [47:55]
Nationality or race or whatever and you’ve experienced some kind of trauma You know you’re gonna be in for a really Rocky shitty ride when you go to the cops if there has not been a proactive way To make it easy for you to come in and be taken seriously and treated gingerly and respectfully So you’re like not going in and so that’s why was allowed to all of these hundreds of women who were all Terrified to go to the cops never went and if ten of them had gone and I did this guy he would have been Maybe caught or at least on the
Speaker 6 [48:31]
Too was the fact that they were essentially dismissed.
Speaker 4 [48:35]
Yeah, that’s, and that’s what I’m saying.
Speaker 6 [48:37]
Said I had made the report and they were like, okay, okay. I mean, it takes all the moving pieces to move and collectively do what needs to be done.
Speaker 4 [48:50]
And even here in the States where we’re making progress, it’s still, you know, as a woman reporting sexual assault, there are places in America where that is still a very rocky and troubling experience.
Speaker 4 [49:03]
Right.
Speaker 6 [49:04]
And you could even say, just based on Lucy, I mean, Lucy did everything right. She kept in touch with Louise and called her and said, hey, I’m here, hey, I’m going to be leaving. I’m going to, you know, I’ll see you for our plans tonight.
Speaker 6 [49:21]
She kept in touch. And when she did not come home and Louise had made the point to reach out to the club and say, my friend’s not back, maybe a difference could have been made if the alarm bells went up right then and there.
Speaker 6 [49:42]
The whole thing is systemic.
Speaker 4 [49:45]
Yeah, I think that I think the failure here is the system not right. I don’t know. I don’t really have take away for her situation.
Speaker 6 [49:53]
This right there’s no takeaway for what they could have done differently and how you know in in the environment in which they were expected to behave and conduct themselves it felt like they did yes they did everything they could.
Speaker 5 [50:09]
The Japanese actually don’t feel too bad, though, because he’s like that guy was Korean. That is.
Speaker 6 [50:14]
Definitely true. They did make a point to mention. They did.
Speaker 5 [50:21]
You’re backing me up. No, that’s the thing.
Speaker 4 [50:23]
The cop, the cop, everyone was like, oh yeah, he’s not really Japanese. And in fact, he’s from a part of Korea or like a Korean ethnicity that is particularly discriminated and looked down on in Japan.
Speaker 5 [50:34]
So fuck this case, man. All right, anyway. Oh, fuck. This is a rough one. If you got through this and you’re still listening and you still are game for more, join us on Slake Haters Only on Facebook or join our Slacation Facebook page.
Speaker 5 [50:50]
Feel free to subscribe and support this nonsense. And this one’s going to come home with us, I think. Oh, man. I’ve lost my mind from this one. And, uh, holy crap. We’ll, uh, we’ll see you on the next one.
Speaker 1 [51:07]
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 Sherriff.
Speaker 1 [51:22]
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.
