MALLORY & CHRISTINE

Michael Carson

Head of the Dog 1882

White Azaleas in a Pot 1885

Madame Vuillard at Table, Edouard Vuillard

Medium: oil,canvas

Man Ray :: Untitled, 1935-1936, Gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles) via kulturletter-koeln.de

17-year-old Junko Furuta was a Japanese high school student who caught the attention of Hiroshi Miyano, a high school bully with connections to the Yakuza (Japan’s organised crime syndicates). On November 25, 1988, after Furuta turned him down, Miyano and three other teenage boys abducted her at knife point as she was walking home from school. They took Furuta to one of their homes in Tokyo and forced her to call her parents, telling them she had run away and was staying with a friend. From here on, Furuta was brutally tortured, using every method you could possibly imagine, for a total of 44 days.

Furuta is thought to have been raped about 500 times, with Miyano inviting Yakuza members over to the house to rape her. She was beaten, urinated on, burnt with cigarettes and lighters, forced to eat cockroaches and drink her own urine. The numerous items forced into Furuta’s vagina and anus included a bottle, scissors, lit fireworks and a lit light bulb, which exploded inside of her. Furuta was also forced to masturbate in front of her captors and their guests. When the parents of the boy who owned the house visited, she had to pretend to be one of the boys’ girlfriend. Even when it became apparent that she was being held against her will, neither parent raised the alarm out of fear of Miyano and his connections to the Yazuka.

Soon Furuta lost the ability to breathe through her nose and would vomit whenever she ate or drank, prompting her attackers to viciously beat her. After an attempt to alert the police, Furuta was horrifically burnt and a large bottle was inserted into her anus, causing internal injury and bleeding. After 20 days of abuse, Furuta could no longer walk. After 30 days, she could not urinate properly, her ear drums were damaged and her brain size was reduced.

Over the course of her 44 days in captivity, Furuta had begged her captors to kill her and put her out of her misery. However, they did not want to put an end to her suffering. On January 4, 1989, after winning a game of Mahjong solitaire, Furuta was subjected to one final attack. She was set upon with an iron barbell and her legs, arms, face and stomach were set alight. She fell into a state of shock and died the following day. Her body was stuffed into an oil drum, which was then filled with concrete and disposed of in a vacant lot in Koto, Tokyo. It was discovered a few weeks later.