Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case (2023)

[bunniefuu]

- [BELL TOLLING]
- [DOG BARKING IN DISTANCE]

[PHONE RINGING]

[GLOOMY MUSIC]

[TIM] I was sitting in the garden at home,

and I got a telephone call

to say that my...
my daughter Lucie had gone missing.

My first reaction was, well,
"How do you know she's gone missing?"

Well, we've not heard from her
for a couple of days.

She's not answering her phone
and we haven't had the emails.

She was out working in Japan.

I was immediately thinking, well,
there must be some rational explanation,

there must be some reason why
she's not being able to get in touch.

[REPORTER 1] Police in Japan
have made a public appeal for help

in tracing a 21-year-old British woman.

Lucie Blackman hasn't been seen

since leaving the bar
where she worked as a hostess.

[TIM] There were three or four more calls.

And I knew there was something
that had gone wrong.

That feeling of complete blind panic

just crashes in on you.

[REPORTER 2] Tokyo,
the world's biggest metropolis.

An alluring place for many,
a nightmare for one.

[REPORTER 3] More than a week has gone by
since British citizen, Lucie Blackman,

was reported missing.

[REPORTER 4] Every year,

hundreds and hundreds
of bright-eyed young girls

head for the bright lights of Tokyo.

[REPORTER 5] The police have been looking
into potential links

between Blackman
and a local religious cult.

[REPORTER 6] The Japanese authority is now
on the hunt for a sexual predator

who has been lurking
on the streets of Tokyo for decades.

[ENIGMATIC MUSIC]

[SLOW TECHNO MUSIC]

[TIM] When Lucie came to leaving school,

she wanted to go out into the world,

like many young people to travel.

It is a fantastic experience.

But I remember Lucie saying,

"Well, I'd like to, uh,
to travel to Japan.

I'm fascinated by the culture out there,

and it would be
an interesting experience."

Japan has this image
of being squeaky-clean, right?

The country where everyone is polite.

You know? There's no crime.

You lose your wallet on the subway
and it comes back to you.

[JAKE] Tokyo in 2000s
was an exciting place to be.

And there were a lot of foreigners
coming here to do work.

There was money to be made
and good times to be had.

Yes, like the rest of channel 4,
I'm in Japan.

[TV HOST] This is the country
that's most popular cultural export

at the moment is Pokémon.

Konnichiwa and welcome to Japanorama.

[JAKE] The image of safe,
polite Japan was so overpowering.

Nobody suspected that there could be
this sort of darker underbelly.

[FOREBODING MUSIC]

A friend of mine who manages
a guest house contacted me,

and said that he was very concerned
about a 21-year-old girl

named Lucie who lived there.

[RYUTARO] She'd gone missing,

and he was unable
to get in touch with her.

It was the first time my friend
had experienced anything like this,

and he was quite upset.

From the tensed look on his face,

I realized that the situation
must have been serious.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

Things were whispered
in the Japanese media.

BRITISH STEWARDESS KIDNAPPED BY A CULT

[JAKE] But the very beginning, you know,
when nobody was aware... There maybe...

There were some...
a small group of foreigners who knew

that there'd been someone who disappeared.

I was a crime reporter in Japan.

My boss reached out to me
and he said like, "Hey, Gaijin,"

which is like the term for "foreigners".

He was like, "We need you." You know?
This is a case that involves Gaijin.

My initial impression,
she probably went up to Thailand

but just forgot to tell anyone,
probably nothing to it.

I went to the Metropolitan
Police Department headquarters.

They briefed me on everything.

[TENSE MUSIC]

[MITSUZANE] As a superintendent,

I was placed in charge
of the Blackman case.

First, we had to rule out
that she hadn't simply run away,

so we needed to speak
in depth with her family

to see if they were aware of any reasons
that might have led her to do so.

[SOEJIMA] At the time, a lot of foreigners
would overstay their visas,

or would work illegally and secretly.

And those people would often try
to disappear to avoid detection.

So when I first heard
about Lucie Blackman,

I was skeptical
that it was actually a criminal case.

[THRILLING MUSIC]

[REPORTER 7] Lucie's father,
Timothy Blackman, touched down in Tokyo

as police said they feared
she may have been kidnapped.

I spoke to her about three weeks ago.

Just a normal, uh, daughter
called her father saying,

"Hi, Dad. I'm having
a good time in Japan."

[REPORTER 8] Did she say anything,
any concerns about her life in Japan?

She was saying she's enjoying herself
and it's such a nice city.

[TIM] Something had happened, um,
and we needed to get her back.

Any concerns you might have
about, um, not having any experience

of talking to a camera or something,

you just get on with it
because you're trying to find your child.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

[JAKE] When Tim came,
there's massive throngs

of reporters and people,

suddenly that story becomes so much bigger

and then very quickly,
everyone was talking about it.

You know, what happened to Lucie Blackman.

[REPORTER 9]
The former British Airways stewardess

went missing on July the first.

Japanese police have made
a public appeal for information

about a 21-year-old British woman
who went missing in Tokyo 11 days ago.

[FOREBODING MUSIC]

[DAVE] But Tokyo is a massive city

with an estimated
27 and a half million people living here.

It's truly like looking
for a needle in a haystack.

[JAKE] I met Tim Blackman and Sophie,
Lucie's younger sister.

I got the impression
that he was incredibly concerned,

but that Tim was also
a very flamboyant showman

and that he would use
his charisma to stir up things

so that something got done.

He is going to make sure that

everybody gets their a*s in gear
and really looks for Lucie.

[TIM] Jake certainly understood
the Japanese systems,

and of course, bilingual,
so that was another great asset.

[TIM] I think he had some contacts
in the police as well

from the work he did.

If you have any information,
please contact us.

[JAKE] Even before he came,
the police were looking for information.

They were definitely
actively soliciting information.

[REPORTER 10] Thirty thousand posters
of Lucie Blackman are put up in Tokyo.

The police are following up
on calls made by the public,

but they are unsure
if the sightings are credible.

[TIM] Hello.

Hello.

[TIM] Lucie was our firstborn child.

And she completely transformed our lives.

She was very special in the family.

She was very quick-witted.

She influenced many people around her.

I think everybody who knew her
when she was growing up as a girl,

orbited around her light, like,

she was very much the center of things.

She decided that a good way
of traveling was to join an airline.

That was a really big deal.

But she was missing, in peril.

The task in hand now was to find Lucie.

[MITSUZANE] I met with Tim
on behalf of the police

to tell him what we knew.

At that point in my life,
I was not particularly knowledgeable

about the unique ways of life

and practices of countries
that weren't Japan,

and that definitely led to me
being surprised or confused

by some of the questions that he asked.

He asked me
whether I have properly checked

all the security cameras.

I explained to him that security cameras
were in limited use in Japan at that time,

because of privacy concerns.

He said, "Mitsuzane, is this a joke?
You can't be serious.

In London,
there are cameras on every single street,

and they're all made here in Japan."

[TENSE MUSIC]

The police reacted as you would expect,
they were the height of politeness.

[TIM] But somebody came forward to me.

An English guy
who was married to a Japanese lady,

and he said,

"Because Lucie is not a Japanese national,
you won't get a police investigation."

And that really sunk home in me.

With those alarm bells ringing,

I thought, "Well, I've got to really think
about some way

of making an investigation take place."

So I thought, well, the first thing
we need to do is get it into the media.

[CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]

We came away
from the police yesterday afternoon

with the impression that

they are following
all lines of investigation,

they are taking a broader view

and looking at all possibilities
at this stage.

[TIM] We've set up a press conference
to try and raise the profile in Tokyo.

They had to move the press conference
to their largest auditorium

because the entire Japanese media
wanted to come.

I looked at all these people
and I said to Sophie,

"This is how
we're gonna find Lucie, Sophie.

These people are
going to find Lucie for us."

In regards to how I feel
at the moment, um...

I'm sure you all appreciate.
This is my sister who's missing.

And, um, and I just want her to come home.

And so, in any way, which anyone can help,

I'll be very grateful
if they would come forward.

There's great interest
from the British press.

[JAKE] The Japanese media
tends to avoid speculation,

while the British media
was quickly running off,

you know, with various theories

and finding any live body they could
to sort of speak on the subject.

Whether they knew anything
about Japan or not,

whatever made for a good headline.

[THRILLING MUSIC]

[TIM] Well, we heard that Lucie was alive,

and I was told she'd been put
on a ship to Hong Kong.

That she was being trafficked for sex.

That she'd been taken in by a cult.

Lucie is a very skeptical young lady.

The idea that somehow
she had suddenly become interested

in a religious cult of some sort,

just didn't ring true at all.

We thought that was ridiculous.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

[JAKE] He brought so much attention
on this case

that the Japanese government

and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police
had to devote huge manpower to it.

Usually in a missing persons case,

you're gonna have
maybe four or five cops on it.

- [SIRENS WAILING]
- But 100 people? That's not normal.

[SIRENS WAILING]

[JAKE] Police start to hone in
on Roppongi, the place where Lucie worked.

And Roppongi was kind of like,
lots of bars,

lots of hostess clubs.

Um, a pretty interesting nightlife.

Lots of foreigners, a lot of money.

You had, you know, Goldman Sachs,

Lehman Brothers,
and all those finance people.

It was like a party, money was flowing.

Roppongi was starting to see that.

There were people
who were willing to spend

a huge amount of cash in an evening.

- [CHAMPAGNE CORK POPS]
- [GUEST SHOUTS]

[BACKGROUND CHATTER]

[SUZY] I worked at Casablanca,

which is the same hostess club
that Lucie Blackman worked in.

It was just a small,
very unremarkable hostess club, really.

Hostessing is very hard to explain
because there isn't a Western equivalent.

You go to this nightclub
and it's full of older men,

and you talk to the older men,
and you serve them drinks.

But there's no sex. It's not like that.

It didn't feel
particularly sleazy or difficult.

It really was
what I would be doing for free,

which is in my twenties,

which was going out to bars
and meeting people.

You could make a lot of money
working as a hostess.

The pay was around
about 50 US dollars an hour.

Then you've got bonuses
if you drank lots of alcohol.

And you only had to work
five, six hours, maybe.

It could really be a... a simple,
innocent job if you wanted it to be.

I think working as a hostess in Japan,

it really attracted girls who are out
to have an interesting experience,

who are out to really live life.

There were so many
amazing independent girls

who were looking to travel.

Just meeting people
who were kind of that brave

and had that bigger vision of life

was... was really amazing actually.

[LIGHT MUSIC]

"Dohan" is probably the part
of hostessing that's the most dodgy.

So a "dohan" specifically means
you have a dinner before you go to work,

and then you take the customer
with you into the club,

and then in the club,

they pay the bonus for the dinner
and then they buy you drinks.

And all these things
are kind of added to their bill.

[SUZY] I think there was
a blurring of lines,

because obviously, going outside
of the hostess club

with a customer on your own,
in your free time,

there's gonna be customers
that are gonna assume

more of that situation.

I felt definitely under pressure
to bring in more customers

or to have dohan dates,

but I never felt...

Personally, um,
I never felt in danger at the clubs.

I think maybe some of the things
that were dangerous,

maybe happened outside the clubs.

[CLARE] I was working
as a journalist in London

for a woman's magazine,

and the magazine was very interested
in the concept of hostessing.

So I went out to Japan

to look at the whole culture of hostessing
and to try and find out more about it.

- [MAN LAUGHING]
- [INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[CLARE] I felt that money

was a big factor and power play
between the men and the women.

That the men had all the money
and... and the women didn't,

and so therefore, the men were dominant.

So you could see sexual politics
in play in the clubs as you watched.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[YAMASHIRO] Captain Teramae's
investigation team had been involved

with the Lucie Blackman case
from the very beginning.

They told our team that they had found
a potential suspect.

The suspect was a Japanese man
who frequented hostess clubs

in the Roppongi district, like Casablanca.

We had been ordered to find the suspect

then to bring them into custody,

and see if they were involved
with the case.

We had to proceed with caution.

Because if the suspect figured out
we were onto him,

he might k*ll Lucie to cover his tracks.

We approached his car
before he went to work,

and asked if he would come in voluntarily
for questioning.

He agreed to come with us willingly,

so we brought him
to the nearest police station,

so we could sit him down
and ask him our questions.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

[SOEJIMA] The suspect had an alibi,
which we were able to corroborate.

Once his alibi checked out,
it was clear to us

that this suspect could not have been
the person who kidnapped Lucie.

Which unfortunately meant
we have to go back to the drawing board.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

[DAVE] Having spent a week
with Tim Blackman,

it's clear he's a loving
and dedicated father

who believes his daughter is alive
somewhere in this city,

but he needs
to find her sooner rather than later.

Dave Russell in Tokyo
for Meridian Tonight.

It became very clear that Tim had a plan.

If you stop pushing the story out,

they'll find... The media
will find something else to look at,

and then suddenly, the focus is off Lucie.

So he had to bring the focus
back onto Lucie as soon as possible.

[DAVE] Out on the streets,
putting posters up,

he wanted to get those posters on the TV,
and everyone would know her face.

Tim and the police in Japan
had a clash of cultures.

[INAUDIBLE CHATTER]

- You can't put signs up on poles here.
- [WOMAN] Ah.

Well, I'm not taking any down.

Arrest me.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[TIM] Lucie needed to be found,

and any parent would be trying
to make the absolute best thing happen

to try and sort the problem out.

I wasn't going to be, um,
shrugged off or... or boxed up.

[TENSE MUSIC]

[JAKE] Tim had been
completely cut out of the loop.

The way he was doing things,
which made the cops look incompetent,

made them very angry.

I think in his anxiety

and his distrust of the Japanese police
who are very poor communicators,

um, he felt that, uh,
the more heat he could turn on them,

the better the results would be.

[FOREBODING MUSIC]

[TIM] I'd realized
it was going to be the G7,

and I knew Tony Blair
would be traveling out there,

and I knew that there was
a huge media interest in the UK.

So we took advantage of that situation.

[REPORTER 11] Prime Minister Blair
stopped off in Tokyo

to put his weight behind the case

of the missing
British hostess Lucie Blackman.

Working closely
with Japanese authorities here,

obviously we appeal to people in Japan

who may know about the case
to come forward

and give us some leads
that we can follow up,

because it is a tragic case

and obviously, the family,
they're at their wit's end.

- [INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- [CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]

[SOEJIMA] The Japanese Prime Minister
made a guarantee.

"The Japanese police
will apprehend the suspect."

It was easy for him to say that,

but that didn't mean
that it was easy for us to do.

And the pressure of his statements
and the situation began to weigh on us.

[YAMASHIRO] There were definitely
some people in the department

that felt that the original investigation
was moving too slowly.

So, some of my cops took matters
into their own hands.

I call them "softshell turtle detectives."

Detectives who don't let go of a lead.

We thought it would be better to start
the investigation over from the beginning

instead of wasting time
chasing down red herrings.

[YAMASHIRO] Kuku was one of those cops,
a tenacious and persistent police officer.

Once he bites, he never lets go,
like a softshell turtle.

[KUKU] We started our process
by spending our nights going through

and pulling relevant information
out of the reports that the main unit

had filed since day one
of the investigation.

We poured over every last detail
to see if anything was missed.

While I was checking the reports

to understand how
the investigation had been conducted,

I came across a report that caught my eye.

It was from the Roppongi area,
which had lots of clubs.

The report was about a foreign hostess

who had been working
at a club in Roppongi.

She was invited by a male regular
to go on a drive to the seaside.

At some point, she passed out.

She was unconscious for hours.

When she woke up, her head hurt badly

and she felt like
she might have been drugged.

The report was skeptical.

It said the source, a club manager,
was an unreliable guy.

And that what he said
should not be taken seriously.

But after reading the report,
we thought that was ridiculous.

A person in that position could
potentially know something important.

This definitely seemed to tie
into the Lucie Blackman case.

So, they start going through
these old reports

and digging up these cases
to see if they can connect the dots.

Except that the police at the local level
never took those reports seriously.

So although there
might have been a complaint,

there was never an investigation.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

[MARUYAMA]
We would find club owners saying,

"Oh, I remember a girl

who worked here three years ago
and had the same type of experience."

Stories like these would pop up
here and there.

[MARUYAMA] So we decided to talk
to every single employee from every club

to see if a similar event
had happened to them.

In the beginning,
they would say things like,

"I don't know anything.
I have nothing to do with it."

[SUZY] Every three months,
the police would come

and all the hostesses
who didn't have visas

would have to go out the back door,

that felt like a very vulnerable situation
for those girls.

[JAKE] Foreign hostesses,
if they suffered,

they were at huge risk
if they went to the police,

because it was very likely
that the police would arrest them

for violating their visa.

There is no upside to go into the police
if you've been victimized as a hostess.

[MARUYAMA] We couldn't talk
to them at work,

so we'd stop them on the streets
when they happen to be walking by.

That was the first thing I did.

But eventually,
several women came forward,

because they wanted to help us find Lucie.

In the end, we discovered that

all of these women had experiences
that were very similar.

[JAKE] These were consistent reports
of hostesses

um, who have been drugged
and possibly r*ped

by a Japanese man of some wealth.

[TENSE MUSIC]

When investigating, you often find
that criminals have certain patterns

of repeated behavior.

The same way that thieves
have their own methods

of breaking and entering.

They develop the series
of noticeable habits.

[SOEJIMA] And those habits don't change.

He preferred luxury cars.

Cars like a Porsche or Mercedes Benz.

Cars on the fancier side.

He always invited his victims
to come see the ocean before go to dinner.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

[SOEJIMA] And he used drugs.

The victims said they had symptoms
of being drugged.

[MARUYAMA] The next morning,
they would wake up

with a sense of discomfort
all over their body.

Some of them reported throwing up.

Some indicated that they felt
that kind of burning sensation.

I felt very sorry for them.

[TENSE MUSIC]

[JAKE] So, with scores
of other testimonies

from Japanese hostesses
and foreign hostesses,

they discovered that there has been
a sexual predator active

in Roppongi for years,
and he has never been caught.

He has never been brought to justice.

[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]

And the family, uh, has decided
to offer a reward of, um,

one and a half million yen
for new information

which leads to finding Lucie.

[TIM] From our point of view,

it was yet another moment
to bring the case up on the screen again.

People thought that I was doing it
because I love being interviewed.

I just wanted the attention
to continue to find Lucie,

and the only way of doing it
was to, to... to feed the animal.

[MITSUZANE] Tim was always surrounded
by members of the press.

We were concerned he might
accidentally disclose information.

That could hurt our investigation.

We're finding after seven to eight weeks

that this is becoming
a very stressful situation.

[TIM] The fact is that
I still am not given, um,

information by the police
as to their progress

as they still consider this case
to be extremely sensitive.

[MITSUZANE] And I would always say

the investigation is progressing steadily.

I can't tell you
any of the details just yet.

[SPEAKING JAPANESE]

[TIM] The Japanese thought
I was a bit rude,

which is probably
how it came over because I wasn't,

I didn't have the time
or the mental capacity

to really indulge in their protocols.

I was in a pretty ragged mental state.

[DAVE] It was a bank holiday weekend,

and there was
a big firework display going on,

and we just stood there
and watched the fireworks and, you know,

everyone's celebrating around
and really enjoying themselves,

but obviously, Tim wasn't.

[FIREWORKS CRACKLING]

I originally started as a journalist,
you know, just a man following him around.

Putting a camera in his nose
and him telling me to go away.

As time went on,
Tim started beginning to trust me,

because we're both in a foreign country,

um, trying to work out
what we can do to find Lucie.

[DAVE] I was getting phone calls
at 4:00 in the morning.

[DAVE CHUCKLES]

"Do you fancy going for a walk,
because I can't sleep?"

But he was tired, clearly.

[DAVE] It takes its toll.
It really did take its toll on him.

And I'm starting to feel
rather worn down and tired.

As the days went into weeks,
and, you know, carried on and carried on,

and a feeling of hopelessness comes on...

You're really on the edge
of wondering, "Well, what can we do now?"

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[TIM] Thank you. Okay.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER CONTINUES]

[TIM] And I am the father
of Lucie Blackman,

the young British girl
who has gone missing in Japan.

[TIM] The idea had come up to start
a specific telephone number

so that the European
or Western girls who were out there

were able to talk to us direct.

The chances of them
having some information were quite high.

The Tokyo Police sort of
didn't really quite understand.

A, why? Or B, what we expected
to get from it?

They were very anti the idea
that we were going to be getting

any information by putting up a hotline,
but they couldn't stop us doing it.

[BACKGROUND CHATTER]

[REPORTER 12] The message
from her mother and brother was simple.

"Happy birthday, Lucie."

As a thousand balloons
were released into the sky

to mark the missing
former air hostess's 22nd birthday.

[JANE] It's just so that Lucie remembers

that we haven't forgotten her birthday
because she'll be 22 today,

and she's always loved her birthday,
always had to make a big fuss.

And I just want her
to know that, you know,

wherever she is,
that we haven't forgotten.

[APPLAUSE]

[ENIGMATIC MUSIC]

At this point,
we had found multiple reports

of a man who would take hostesses
out for a drive, drug them,

and attempt to sexually as*ault them.

One of the victims
was a girl named Jessie from Australia.

Her case happened three years earlier.

She had written the man's name
and cell phone number

in her old notebook.

I asked her where it was,

and she said
it was in her home in Australia.

[INVESTIGATOR]
The notebook just arrived, sir.

[SOEJIMA] We reached out to her father

and asked if he would send
the notebook to Japan

so we could examine it ourselves.

[PAPER RUSTLING]

She had gotten so mad
that she scribbled all over the number.

But when we held it up to the light
we could identify the digits.

[THRILLING MUSIC]

[ASANO] The man's name was Yuji Honda,

and his cell phone number, ending in 3301,

had been written down in the notebook.

So we started checking all the calls
that had been made from this phone.

[SOEJIMA] The phone number
was still in use.

We were able to access the phone records

and find that there were about ten numbers
that this person had called.

We then searched these numbers
against our files

to see if there were any matches.

Lucie Blackman's number came up
as an exact match.

[JAKE] That's a very solid lead.
It's a huge step forward.

This is the first time
they ever showed that

the person they suspect, um,
has kidnapped Lucie Blackman

is actually connected to her,
that they have had some contact.

[KUKU] The suspect was clever.

He created many false identities

so that they could never be
traced back to him.

We asked the cell phone company
to do a location search to help locate

where the calls were coming from.

At exactly three o'clock,
the call was picked up

by an antenna near Tokyo Tower.

Somewhere between one minute
and five minutes later,

the signal was picked up by an antenna
in a completely different position.

Another five minutes later,
an antenna in the west picked up a call.

Another five minutes later,
an antenna in the east picked up a call.

There's not a car in the world
that can travel that fast

in just one minute.

I was baffled.

Then I thought,
if the calls are being picked up

by four antennas
in four different directions,

there was a possibility
that the caller's signal

was in intersectional area.

[JAKE] You know,
we're talking the year 2000.

It's not like the movies

where you can locate exactly
where the phone call came from.

You can kind of connect it
to a general area.

So, they're able to trace the call
to a very high-end area known as Akasaka.

It looks like the phone call came
from a place called Moto-Akasaka Towers,

which is a very expensive
residential building

with security cameras
and all those things.

You can't just walk in there.
It's hard to access.

[KUKU] We showed the manager our badges,
and they let us in.

He told us that two rooms
on the sixth floor

were being rented by a man
who worked for a company called P-Orihara.

The manager said
the renter was an unusual guy.

He would walk right past the manager,

he never stopped to say hello,

and he would always look down
so he could hide his face.

The manager said that person drives
a lot of luxury foreign cars,

then took us to the parking lot.

Porsche, Mercedes-Benz,
Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce.

All the cars mentioned
in the testimonies were there.

I didn't know if P-Orihara
was a foreigner's name

or the name of a company.

But there was no information
on that particular room.

The name of the owner
or employer wasn't listed.

And they're thinking,
"This is our suspect."

But they don't have enough evidence
for a warrant.

They're just going on assumptions,
and so the investigation stops there.

They can't go any further.

[TENSE MUSIC]

[YAMASHIRO] There were a number
of foreign hostesses in Roppongi

whom we were able to speak with.

And fortunately,
there were a few of the women

who were willing to go on the record.

One of them was Monica from England.

She said,
"I think the man's name was Koji."

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

[ASANO]
It was the 10th of October in 1997.

She told us that she met up
with a customer name Koji

in Roppongi that day.

She said that he drove her
to a resort apartment building

that had a view of the ocean.

She told us how she remembered seeing
a long row of palm trees

near the apartment building,

and we immediately thought
of Zushi Marina,

because it was the only place we knew of
in the area that had palm trees.

I thought Monica
might remember more details

if we were there in person,
so we went together to Zushi Marina.

[TENSE MUSIC]

[JAKE] Zushi Marina is about
an hour half away from Tokyo,

where it's just
a luxury resort condominium,

and it's in a very expensive area
for the... for the rich and the wealthy.

[ASANO] Monica said, "This is it.

This is the resort
where that customer took me."

She was quite certain of it.

We drove around the entire property,

but she wasn't able to confirm
which building it was.

All she knew was that it might be
number four or number seven.

I remember we went
to a restaurant in the area,

and we showed the waitress
a picture of Lucie,

and she told us instantly
that she was sure

that the woman in the photo
had been there on July 1st.

HEIGHT 175CM, MEDIUM BUILD, OVAL-FACED

[ASANO] I asked her if she had come alone.

She said a man was there too.

[HATASHITA] First, I went in
and talk to the assistant manager.

I wanted to get a list of the residents
staying at Zushi Marina.

I had to rule them out one by one.

I knew it would be tricky work
and quite time-consuming.

But if this person was still alive,
we needed to rescue him or her

as soon as possible.

As I went through them one name at a time,
we couldn't find the possible suspect.

One person was suspicious
and I had a gut feeling about them.

So I had an idea,

to search for a man
who had a lot of luxury foreign cars.

Obara emerged as a potential suspect.

When I heard that, I thought,
"Wait a minute, could that be..."

[KUKU] When we visited
Moto-Akasaka Towers,

the name on the rental listing
was P-Orihara.

[KUKU] The Kanji character's "Obara"...

ORI HARA

...can also be read as "Orihara."

I got goosebumps all over my body.

So this is a huge moment
for the investigation,

because this is the first time
that they're able to connect the dots.

A310 JOJI OBARA

[JAKE] The police finally have a name.

We learned something new about Joji Obara.

He had been previously arrested
in Wakayama

after he had been caught
dressing up as a woman,

so he could sneak
inside a woman's restroom

and film people who used it.

[SOEJIMA] I talked to some of the officers
who worked on the case during that time,

and I asked them what he was like.

They said completely resistant.

Upon his arrest,
he refused to take a mugshot.

He would turn his face,
and he wouldn't let them take his picture.

Completely uncooperative.

I asked for the mugshot to be faxed to me.

[WHIRRING]

[HATASHITA] The fax machines back then
had low quality,

and the photo came out quite dark.

So we put together about 100 photos,
including one of the suspects,

and showed them to the victims.

[ASANO] Monica and Jessie were both able
to immediately single out Obara's picture

without hesitation whatsoever.

After all this time

working with pseudonyms and aliases,
we finally had a real name.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

[JAKE] So now they have a face
to the suspect,

and they realize that if
he is holding Lucie Blackman hostage,

they don't have time
and they really need to hurry.

[SIREN BLARING]

We didn't have anything yet
that directly tied him to Lucie,

but we still felt we could arrest him
based on his other victims,

based on the other victims.

[NAITO] At six o'clock in the morning,
we were already in position.

[TENSE MUSIC]

Investigators are always nervous
when they make an arrest,

no matter the case.

I'm sure that I was very nervous as well.

[NAITO] We positioned two people
by the emergency exit

and two people next to the window,

and one person by the door
to keep a lookout.

There were about seven people in total.

I was informed over the radio
that the suspect was awake

because the TV was turned on.

So I continued to monitor the situation.

He always went out to buy
a newspaper at about seven o'clock,

so I thought
there was no need to storm in.

From what we knew, Obara didn't look
like a bad-tempered person.

Which is why I figured
he wouldn't be violent.

However, I was a bit worried
about him jumping out of the window.

That was my biggest concern.

Just before seven o'clock,
the door opened.

When I asked, "Are you Obara?",
his face suddenly dropped.

He said, "Yes, I am."

I think he knew his arrest was imminent.

[REPORTER 13] Jo Obara, the president
of a property management firm

was arrested early this morning.

Police say Obara
was often seen in the area

where 22-year-old Lucie
from Kent had been working.

[TIM] We heard there was a suspect,

and then not terribly long after,
we heard that somebody had been arrested.

It was big news.

This was the man
who maybe knew where Lucie was.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Joji Obara was a playboy
who'd inherited a large amount of money.

He was a very wealthy man,
from his father,

but was known by all reports
of neighbors that he was a loner.

[CLARE] He owned a number of properties,

and the police began to search
all the properties that he owned.

- Please stand back.
- [CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]

[ASANO] I was in charge of the crime scene
at Zushi Marina building number four.

When we went inside, what we found was

a lot of drug related items
as well as a large quantity of alcohol.

What I remember vividly as an inspector
was the metal fitting on the ceiling.

I remember thinking to myself

what the purpose
of that metal fitting was.

[FOREBODING MUSIC]

[SOEJIMA] I was in charge of the search
and seizure at Moto-Akasaka Towers.

The most memorable item was his notebook.

I don't know when he wrote it,
but there was one entry,

he wrote that he was going to become evil,

that he devote himself to evil.

He very quickly took
his own writing to heart,

and he turned himself
into a sort of monster.

[JAKE] So after Joji Obara was arrested,

the police raided several
of his properties in Tokyo,

because he was a kind of
a real estate magnate,

including the seaside condominium
at the Zushi Marina,

where he lured many of his victims.

[HATASHITA] We confiscated
a lot of videotapes,

and I'm not talking
about just two or three.

- [MAN SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY]
- [TRUCK BEEPING]

[PEOPLE MURMURING]

[HATASHITA] The videotapes were labeled
with names, not full names though.

What Obara did to these women,
it was recorded on videotapes.

But I don't think it's something
that I should be talking about

in detail here.

[CLARE] The police found

over 400 VHS tapes of women,

apparently comatose,

lying on beds, and him assaulting them.

[STATIC]

It's the stuff of horror films.
[INHALES DEEPLY]

That's how we learned the purpose
of the metal fittings on the ceiling.

They were used to lift
the victim's legs off the ground.

He doesn't consider them to be people,

but rather dolls.

I never dreamed...

there could be anyone
that would do something like that.

I've never seen anything so despicable.

[JAKE] There were so many,

and the detectives had to go
through them one by one by one.

But among those tapes,
there was not a single one

of Lucie Blackman.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

[YAMASHIRO] Our immediate goal
was to find Lucie.

So the pressure was high.

But with all the evidence we had,
I thought we could make him confess.

Just from talking to him,
I quickly realized that I was dealing

with a person who had
an extremely warped view of reality.

When it came to the case,
Obara denied everything.

Even when I showed him evidence,

he insisted that everything
that happened was consensual.

He said that they all were paid
for their services.

He stuck to that excuse, continuously.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

[JAKE] Obara denies
any knowledge of Lucie.

He denies ever meeting her,
he denies having any contact with her all.

The focus of the investigation now

has to be based
on the evidence that they have.

Obara is claiming that all the sex
on these videotapes is consensual.

So now, they need to identify
some of the victims who will come forward

and verify the fact
that this was not consensual,

that they were victims

so that they can build
a criminal case against him.

[TENSE MUSIC]

[YAMAGUCHI] When I saw the videos,
I thought this man's crimes

are completely comparable
to a m*rder case.

To a woman, sex crimes
can be as horrifying as m*rder.

I remember that we set up
a video analysis unit in a large room.

It was a big room,
big enough for dozens of people.

[YAMAGUCHI] We didn't have enough staff,

so we had to take some younger officers
from the riot police,

and temporarily reassign them to help.

The victims in the videos would change,
but the footage showed

the same horrible crimes
over and over again.

A few of those officers couldn't handle
the trauma of seeing the videos.

Several had to recuse themselves

because they were having
mental breakdowns.

[EERIE MUSIC]

[YAMAGUCHI] I ended up going to some
of the victims' homes

and interviewed them.

They were sure they went there,
they woke up

and didn't know what was done to them.

I had to tell them we have
the video evidence.

It was very hard for me to show them.

They all reacted to it in different ways.

Some would cover their eyes,
or they would deny it was them.

One victim actually got a nosebleed
during the interview.

She must have been so affected by it.

[MARUYAMA] I told them
that we had to make sure

that this criminal pay the price
for what he had done

and that they were the key.

I couldn't let Obara...

get away with it, that's why.

And I explained this very carefully
to the victims.

That was the only way.

[FOREBODING MUSIC]

So the police need to show
that the sex was not consensual.

Obviously, if someone is drugged,
they cannot consent to sexual intercourse,

um, which in Japan is called "Quasi-r*pe."

[JAKE] And they're pretty convinced

that he's used chloroform
on one of his victims.

So, they have a forensic investigator
look at all those videotapes.

[THRILLING MUSIC]

[HARAFUJI] He would take a towel
and pick up a brown bottle

from a side table,

and then pour liquid from this bottle
onto the towel.

Then he'd place the liquid-soaked towel
back onto the victim's face.

[HARAFUJI] Towels were always draped
over the victims' faces.

Among the seized items,
there were sleep-inducing drugs.

There was ether, chloroform,

and a large number of other ill*gal drugs
that have a sleep-inducing effect.

As I was looking
at various footage of the victims,

I noticed one woman in particular.

Suddenly, her hands started trembling,

shaking in small movements.

I was very curious as to why
her hands were moving like this

even though she was unconscious.

Chloroform toxicity
can lead to fulminant hepatitis,

which can lead to hepatic encephalopathy.

It has a very characteristic symptom
known as flapping tremors.

As I researched
the situation of this victim further,

I found out she was
a 21-year-old victim named Carita,

and that she had indeed passed away.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[CLARE] Carita Ridgway,
who was the same age, 21, as Lucie,

disappeared eight years earlier in 1992.

I met Carita's old sister, Samantha.

Both of them had been traveling
in Japan and Australia before.

They were both quite adventurous.

And then Sam herself
went to teach English in Tokyo.

Her sister Carita flew out to join her,
but she couldn't find a job.

So she decided
to find work temporarily as a hostess.

One day, Carita was dropped off
at a hospital

by a man who said
that she'd got food poisoning.

[MACHINE BEEPING]

[CLARE] The doctors couldn't understand
really what was happening to her.

Her body was going into organ failure.

After a week in the hospital,

they had to turn off
the life support machine.

[FLATLINES]

[CLARE] But the police didn't want
to do anything at that stage

because they said, well,
she died of food poisoning

and they didn't suspect
that there'd been a crime.

There was no autopsy.

But fortunately, they did keep
a sample of Carita's liver.

Following Obara's arrest,
the police put two and two together,

and they did an examination
of the liver sample,

and they found chloroform.

And... And then they could
arrest Joji Obara for the abduction

and... and manslaughter of Carita Ridgway.

But the mystery remained
as to what he'd done with Lucie,

and... and he was...
he, he had evidently destroyed

whatever tape he had
of whatever he did to Lucie.

So it was still hard to pin the abduction
and attack on Lucie Blackman on him.

[REPORTER 14] Tim Blackman
and his daughter, Sophie,

still uncertain what's happened to Lucie.

The 22-year-old vanished in Tokyo
in July while working as a bar hostess.

In a statement, Joji Obara,
a businessman, arrested a month ago,

has revealed more information,

but still denies
any involvement in her disappearance.

It's now transpired that he's admitting
that he met Lucie in the Casablanca club.

Now, we know that to have been probably
about a week before she went missing.

He's got a history as long as your arm
for abducting Western blonde girls,

and lo and behold, a week later,
Lucie goes missing.

The hope that the arrest of Obara

was actually going to bring Lucie back
to us was fairly short-lived

because it did start
to look pretty grimy after that.

You're so beaten down
that you can't distinguish between...

joy or relief or
depression or anxiety or...

deep, deep upset.

It's all just in one massive of emotion.

[ENIGMATIC MUSIC]

[NAITO] Our number one focus
was still finding Lucie.

We had to thoroughly explore
every last piece of evidence.

They could save her life.

[FOREBODING MUSIC]

[YAMASHIRO] Obara had a habit
of collecting things,

and he kept a lot of receipts
in his apartment.

The evidence team catalogued and analyzed
each individual receipt.

From that, they created a timeline
of Obara's actions.

[JAKE] He has a receipt for everything.

And they're able to reconstruct

from the receipts that he's had
where he was moving through the day.

[YAMASHIRO] The analysis team assumed
that on July 1st, around 3:00 p.m.,

Obara met Lucie and headed to Zushi.

On the way to Zushi,

Obara and Lucie stopped at a restaurant
near the yacht harbor in Hayama.

This was confirmed
by Assistant Inspector Asano at the time.

Then in the evening, around 5:00 p.m.,

they went to Obara's apartment
at Zushi Marina.

It was at this point
that Lucie's whereabouts became unknown.

Between the night of July 2nd
and early morning of July 3rd,

Obara drove back to Tokyo.

On July 4th, Obara did a lot of shopping.

On July 5th, Obara visited an apartment
at the Blue Sea Aburatsubo.

The Blue Sea Aburatsubo was one
of the many properties that Obara owned.

The next day,

a resident complained to the manager
about noise coming from Obara's apartment.

[JAKE] And among the receipts,
they find this very curious purchase

for a chainsaw, cement,
and a portable tent.

And they're beginning to figure out

that probably these were used
to cover up the crime.

[YAMASHIRO] This is pure speculation.

The conclusion of the analysis team
was that Lucie lost her life

on the night of July 1st.

Within a few days,

her body was transported
from Zushi Marina to Blue Sea Aburatsubo.

And she was most likely dismembered there.

[YAMASHIRO] After analyzing
various pieces of evidence,

we had no choice
but to make this conclusion.

For Lucie's case, we lacked evidence.

And much of what we did have
was purely circumstantial.

[KUKU] We needed hard evidence
to connect Obara to Lucie

because without finding Lucie's body
and confirming her death,

we couldn't try him
for her presumed m*rder.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

We thought that if we couldn't prove
it was m*rder,

this case would never be resolved.

So we knew that we had to find the body.

This was the most important thing.

We started by looking
to see if there were any spots

where a body might be hidden in the area.

We had no idea where she could be.

[SOEJIMA] But we figured it couldn't be
that far from the apartment in Aburatsubo.

Upper management told us
they would give us

one final week to search.

After a week, they'd shut us down.

My stomach was in knots.

I told my men that
this was our last chance.

I was dreading what would happen
if we didn't find her.

We really needed to nail this guy
with serious jail time.

I felt very strongly about it.

[NOZOE] We went to various spots
on the hill where there were crop fields.

The path to the crop fields was terrible.

We searched there for a number of days

until we were completely filthy
and stinking.

[BIRDS CAWING]

[NOZOE] We went to the coast
at 8:15 in the morning.

There were two or three caves there.

I thought I'd just try relying
on my hunch.

The area was littered with stuff
that had washed ashore.

So we cleared away everything outside
and inside of the cave.

After clearing it,

we saw a bathtub.

I flipped it over.

"These are carnivorous bugs," I said.

I cleared the area
and kept digging around it.

At first, it looked
like a big burlap sack.

And when I opened it, I saw it,
there was a foot.

I was certain it was Lucie.

[ABE] I was standing
in a rocky area near the cave

and my phone rang.

I heard Nozoe's voice say,
"It's here. It's here."

His words were so garbled
that I couldn't make out

what he was saying.

So I told him, "Wait there.
I'm coming over to you right now."

A huge flock of kites
had gathered above the scene.

Squawking loudly.

They caught the smell of death
and started circling in the sky.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[JAKE] Early in the morning of the day
that they found the body,

I was like, "Okay,
I'm gonna have to call Tim."

I'd update him because
the Tokyo Police Department wasn't.

I just remember, uh, this...

this long, long pause
when I told him and...

[SIGHS]

You know, that phone call
really stays in my head.

I can remember precisely where I was.
I was standing in a backstreet.

[TIM] It was a drizzly day, and...

it was Jake, he said, um,
well, you know, they found her.

I was hopeful all the time,

um, right through to that moment,
really, when...

and then I think 20 minutes later,
the Japanese interpreter rang me,

and said they have
the dental records back,

it's definitely Lucie.

Um, I just sort of stood
in the street and yelled.

Um, then that was
the first time that I actually decided

that Lucie could be dead.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]

I love Lucie so much

for the wonderful
and beautiful person she was.

[SNIFFLES]

Both on the inside and on the outside.

She never said an unkind word about anyone

and always made people feel very special.

[SNIFFLES]

She was loved by so many people.

How could anyone do
something so horrific... [SNIFFLES]

...so inhuman and so evil?

When Lucie's k*ller
is convicted of this crime,

for me, justice demands, that he spends
the rest of his natural life in prison,

contemplating the enormity of his crimes.

[SOEJIMA] We finally have enough
to indict him for Lucie's m*rder.

I think... for the sake of the victims,
he should be given the maximum penalty.

I can't really make any judgments
on how the trial will eventually unfold.

Though if it is him who k*lled Lucie,

I hope he never sees another day
of sunlight or takes another breath.

[BACKGROUND CHATTER]

[GLOOMY MUSIC]

[TIM] We were sitting in the courtroom
and Obara was over there,

and it just felt really surreal.

I didn't have it,
anything left to get emotional about.

If I pinned my entire life's hope
on him being found guilty,

then, you know, then I'm just
setting myself up for another disaster.

[CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]

The verdict in the court today
has shown that...

[CLICKS TONGUE]

...Lucie's life was not in vain.

Lucie brought justice
to, uh, Carita Ridgway,

and the eight other r*pe victims

who bravely came forward
to support the case.

But unfortunately, today
we've not received justice for Lucie.

[CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]

[MARUYAMA] I was so disappointed.

Not guilty. I thought, "No way!"

The investigators at that time
were more angry than surprised.

Obara had done such terrible things.

Yes?

Could you just confirm
what you plan to do as the next step?

We've made our position
extremely clear that we believe

that our family deserves
to get proper justice for Lucie

and that they should give
strong consideration to an appeal.

[CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]

The police had
all these disparate threads,

but they hadn't put it
into a strong enough case,

and what they subsequently did
when the Blackman's appealed

was to make the case stronger, really.

[TENSE MUSIC]

[TIM] We put absolutely
every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears

into it that we had.

We'd... done what we needed to do.

Today, truth, honor,
and justice... justice have prevailed,

not only for Lucie, but for all victims
of violent sexual crime.

He's got life sentence and, you know,
I think... I think justice has been done.

[CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]

- [BELL TOLLING]
- [DOG BARKING IN DISTANCE]

[MITSUZANE] In 2010,

I actually had a chance
to visit Lucie's grave.

I had a chance to pay my respect.

So, I flew over to England.

When I got there, I went to see Jane,

and she treated me to afternoon tea
with homemade snacks.

She was very hospitable towards me,

and I was touched by her warm welcome.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[MITSUZANE] Lucie's tomb
is in a churchyard.

On her gravestone
was her full name, nickname,

and how her family wanted her remembered.

"A star lighting our sky,"
the tombstone said.

[SOMBER MUSIC CONTINUES]

[ABE] The fact that Lucie came
from a foreign country to work

and then became a victim of such a crime
in our country

has left a certain emotions in my heart,
which is still there.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

Every year since, we go there...

to appease her spirit
and to pray that she rests in peace.

We've been going there
for the last 20 years,

and it's the only case we do it for.

[TIM] In some strange way...

[SOFT CHUCKLE]
...Lucie has given us an experience of life

however ghastly it's been
and beastly it's been,

um, you know, it's something
that a legacy which Lucie has left for me,

in my heart and in my soul.

And they... they...

Those feelings are very pure and untainted

by hatred and anger
and all the rest of it,

because I've kept that
out of Lucie's memory.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[WAVES CRASHING]

[SOFT MUSIC]