Futoshi Matsunaga, the manipulator who wiped out a family

Futoshi Matsunaga is a Japanese murderer who, with the help of his partner Junko Ogata, wiped out her entire family. It is 6 March 2002 when a girl of just 17 turns up at the police in a state of shock. And that same day the crimes of Matsunaga and Ogata come to light. But let’s take things in order.

Futoshi Matsunaga

Matsunaga was born in 1961 in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. From a young age he was a petty thug, and at 19, in 1980, he married and had a son. But he had several lovers. In 1982 he began a relationship with Junko Ogata, an old schoolmate. Although already married, in 1984 he promised Junko he would marry her.

The young woman’s family was against it, especially her mother Shizumi. Matsunaga was a violent man who beat Junko and did not hesitate to rape Shizumi when she opposed the marriage, in 1985. Because of this, that same year Junko attempted suicide, but survived.

Matsunaga, a skilled manipulator, made her believe that her family hated her for trying to take her own life and persuaded her to come and live with him… and his wife! His wife was certainly not happy and, tired of her husband’s abuse, ran away with their son and reported him to the police. But Matsunaga’s family had connections and the case dragged on.

In the 1980s he opened a company selling futons and managed to rent a building with several floors. Business boomed, but after the economic crisis it began to dry up, and Matsunaga stopped paying his bills and started blackmailing people and committing frauds. For this both he and Junko were wanted for fraud in 1992, the year he was also wanted for the violence against his wife reported to police years earlier. He is said to have punished his employees very violently, above all with electric shocks.

The abuse begins

In 1993 Matsunaga learned of Kumio Toraya’s criminal past and decided to blackmail him. The man was forced to move into Matsunaga’s flat with his 8-year-old daughter. Both were abused. They were tortured with electricity, Matsunaga’s favourite method, but were also forced to beat each other. The little girl was forced to bite her father and punch him, and both were forced to eat their own faeces. In 1996 Kumio died from the abuse, and his daughter and Junko were forced to dispose of the body.

In 1997 he deceived another woman by promising to marry her and held her prisoner together with her daughter. Fortunately both managed to escape by jumping from a second-floor window. The woman was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. We don’t know whether she did not report him, or did and was not believed.

That same year Junko, perhaps exasperated by Futoshi Matsunaga’s control and manipulation, ran away. Not knowing where she was and unable to contact her in any way, he faked his own death, even organising a funeral. Once she heard of Matsunaga’s “death”, Junko returned home where, to her great surprise, she found him alive and well. From then on the abuse continued.

Psychological control over the family

At this point Matsunaga exerted psychological control over Junko’s entire family, first by raping her sister Rieko, who was married to Kazuya, and then by blackmailing her mother over the rape she had suffered in 1985. The members of Junko’s family were:

• Takashige, the father
• Shizumi, the mother
• Rieko, the sister
• Kazuya, the brother-in-law (Rieko’s husband)
• Aya, the niece (daughter of Rieko and Kazuya)
• Yuki, the nephew (son of Rieko and Kazuya)

In December 1997 Junko was forced to torture her own father, Takashige, with electricity. The torture led to his death on 21 December 1997. In 1998 Matsunaga forced Kazuya and his wife Rieko to strangle Shizumi, Junko and Rieko’s mother. That same year Kazuya and his daughter Aya were forced to kill Rieko: Kazuya strangled her while the little girl held her down. After strangling his wife, Kazuya was locked in the bathroom and left to starve. He died on 13 April 1998.

Also in 1998 Junko and Aya killed Aya’s little brother, Yuki, aged just 5. On 7 June 1998 Kumio’s daughter, who had stayed with the killer couple after her father’s death, killed Aya. The victims’ remains were cut up, boiled and flushed down the toilet or thrown into a nearby river. Kumio’s daughter, after escaping and alerting the police, would say that Futoshi Matsunaga had wanted to make her drink the water in which her father’s remains had been boiled.

In 2000 Matsunaga persuaded another woman, with two children, to run away with him on the promise of marriage. Once again Matsunaga borrowed a lot of money from her, and the following year the woman left, leaving her two children with Matsunaga. On 30 January 2002 Kumio’s daughter managed to escape, but was recaptured by her tormentors two weeks later. The girl could take no more of the abuse, and in March she escaped again and alerted the police.

Arrests and sentences

Matsunaga and Junko were sentenced to death by hanging, although on 26 September 2007 the Fukuoka High Court commuted Junko’s sentence to life imprisonment, because she had been manipulated by him. Matsunaga was convicted of six murders and one count of manslaughter, that of Takashige, who died as a result of the electric shocks.

The confirmed victims are 7 (Junko’s family and Kumio), although there is an unclear episode from 1993. At the time Matsunaga had persuaded a wealthy woman to leave her husband with the promise of marriage. The woman moved in with Matsunaga (he had told her Junko was his sister) with her three children, and one of them died in mysterious circumstances. After this the other two children were sent to live with their grandparents, and the following year the woman also died in mysterious circumstances. Despite strong suspicions of Matsunaga’s guilt, police found no evidence against him.

Matsunaga is still awaiting the date of his execution. Do you think Junko’s reduced sentence is fair?

Sources

• Wikipedia, Futoshi Matsunaga