April 2, 2025 • 50 mins
Carita Ridgeway from Australia and Lucie Blackman from England arrived in Japan eight years apart, both working as hostesses, earning $150-$400 a night while entertaining wealthy businessmen.
At 21, both planned to make money for world travel but encountered Joji Obara, a sadistic criminal mastermind. While there were hundreds of victims assaulted by Obara, they were the only ones known to have lost their lives.
Clare Campbell’s book Tokyo Hostess: Inside the Shocking World of Tokyo Nightclub Hostessing explores their stories, the Japanese sex industry, and the serial rapist who sparked an international investigation.
You can find her book here.
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Guest: Clare Campbell
Host: Gemma Bath
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters. This podcast was
recorded on It's close to midnight on a Wednesday evening
in early July two thousand and Japanese police are knocking
at the door of number four oh one at an
(00:33):
apartment complex in the seaside town of Abaratzibo, about an
hour and a half from Tokyo. The man leasing it
is rarely there and tonight neighbors can hear thumping and
banging coming from inside. When one of them knocked. The
lights on inside were swiftly turned off, so four policemen
are here to check it out. After several demands to
(00:55):
be let in, finally the door creaks open. Standing there
is a half naked man breathing heavily with beads of
sweat on his face. He's covered in dust and dirt.
Behind him, off us can see chips of what appears
to be concrete and a large linen bag with something
(01:15):
inside it. I'm retiling my bathroom, he tells them. They
ask to come in and see, but the man gets
agitated and refuses to let them in. They don't push
it he's obviously not an intruder, so they leave him
to it. What they don't realize is the sinister scene
they've just witnessed, because the half naked man is Joji Abara,
(01:41):
and pretty soon he's going to be charged with murder,
manslaughter and implicated in the horrific sexual assaults of as
many as four hundred women. I'm Jemma Bath and this
is True Crime Conversations among of mere podcast exploring the
(02:04):
world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who
know the most about them. Ridgeway from Australia and Lucy
Blackman from England touched down in the bright lights of
Japan eight years apart. Both went with a plan to
work for a few months in Tokyo's super exclusive nightclubs
as a hostess, earn a bunch of cash, fund their
(02:26):
travels and adventures around the world, and then return to
their lives in their respective countries and start building their futures.
They were both twenty one, beautiful and full of dreams.
It's a pretty normal post schooling trope leave and explore
the world before settling into a life of study and career.
(02:46):
For Karita in the eighties and Lucy in the two thousands,
Japan was sold to them as a safe place to go.
In fact, the hostessing world was sold to them as safe,
despite it being on the fringes of the lucrative sex industry.
But for these two women, it was anything but, because
they found themselves coming face to face with a sadistic
(03:08):
criminal mastermind who hid behind flashy cars and suits. While
they were two of hundreds of victims, they were the
only ones that we know about that also lost their lives.
Claire Campbell is the author of Tokyo Hostess. Inside the
shocking world of Tokyo nightclub hostessing, she explores the stories
(03:29):
of Careta and Lucy, the complicated Japanese sex industry, and
the serial rapist who sparked an international investigation. Claire joins us, now, Claire,
can you take me inside the lure of hostessing in Japan?
Why are young women, particularly Western women, drawn to this industry.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
It was a fantastic opportunity for young women, or it
seemed to be at the time. It was a way
to go abroad, somewhere exotic, and to make lots of
money in a very what seemed a very easy and
a very safe way. And it was the message coming
from Tokyo at the time was it was safe, safe, safe,
(04:17):
and it wasn't a sexual transaction. They were just going
in the manner of it would have been the closest
analogy would be geisha girls to go and talk and
light men's cigarettes and give them a drink and just
chat to them and get paid a relatively large amount
of money. I mean, Lucy was being paid between twenty
(04:38):
and forty pounds an hour, and Lucy at the time
had a seven thousand pound credit card debt. So she
said to her sister, I'm just going to go out
there and I'm going to make as much money as
I can in a shorter time as I can.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I know you say that it's not the sex industry technically,
but it's kind of on the fringes. I've heard it
described as and when you dive into the actual sex
industry in Japan, it's called the water trade. If I'm
saying that right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It is the water trade. But there's various degrees of
the water trade. So Lucy was and Careta were at
the very top, which is the girls in the clubs.
Then there's the cabaret clubs, and then underneath there's what
are called snack girls, and below that you're really getting
(05:29):
into like blowjob bars line, so that there are all these.
The Japanese have a very strange attitude towards sex. So
they love sex. They don't see anything wrong in sex,
but it has to be ordered and they have to
have rules about it, and they don't like people not
(05:49):
obeying the rules. So the bars that Lucy and Kreta
worked in, they wouldn't expect the girls to have sex,
and in fact, if the girls suggested it, they'd be
quite shocked, even though the other way round. Occasionally people
were paid for sex. But in the bars where Lucy
and Creata worked, not really, not really. I mean the
(06:10):
men would try, but that they would be quite shot
themselves and probably go run away if the girls agree
to it.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I think all of us have heard about, you know,
the vending machines with used women's underwear, but it goes
much further than that. You kind of explored erotic fish
women image class, right, take me in there. What are
some of the weirder things that the Japanese sex industry
can offer you?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That there are some really really weird, like going to
strange bars where people dress up. Cosplay is a big thing,
and the borders of pedophilia as well. They have images
of children but children in like weird costumes and people
can go and you can all dress up and people
(07:00):
pretend to have sex with fish. Having sex with fish
is a big thing. Having sex with octopi is also
a big thing. I mean, it seems very very weird
to us that it's bordering on sort of bestiality and
things that we just wouldn't go near.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But I guess it explains just how big business sex
is in Japan because it does go into all of
these different areas.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It does. It does. It's massively cleaned up since the
time when Lucy was there. But Rapongi, where Lucy was working,
was the wild wild West, as one girl who'd been
a hostessa described it to me afterwards, and she said
her sister worked there after Lucy's death, and it was
completely different because at this time it was largely unregulated.
(07:51):
The hostesses were largely unregulated. A lot were working on
working visas, which they weren't technically allowed to do. You
weren't allowed to either have a tourist visa or a
working visa to work in the clubs, so it was
all bordering on illegal anyway.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
But did Japanese officials kind of know that was happening
in turn a blind eye? Or how did that work?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Did and turned a blind eye to it? Right? And
when Lucy went missing, her friend Louise went the embassy
that the consul was really shocked that it was going on.
He had no idea that girls gave up business cards.
The first thing you did when you went into the
hostess bar, when you met a man was to give
him your card. But nobody knew who you were with,
(08:39):
and there was no way of checking who you'd gone
off with, which is what of course Lucy did and
Careta had done before her.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, because I want to back to hostessing. You know,
it's in a club setting, but part of being a
hostess was going on these dates outside of the club,
which was quite a regular thing to do, wasn't it.
Can you explain that concept?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yes, it was called a dohan, which was technically a
paid date. So a man would pick you from what
was called a doggie box. There was a group of
girls all waiting to be chosen, and a man would
pick one girl and then if he came the next
night and he picked that girl again and kept wanting
(09:25):
to see her, he'd ask her on a dough hand
and a date and he'd take her. It would really
bizarre things. I mean quite often. These were middle aged
businessmen and they'd take the girls out to the golf
course or something, sometimes with their families, and the girls
would go on a date with them, or it could
be to dinner or to a bar. And if you
(09:48):
got you were expected to get at least four dough
hands a month. And if you had two dough hands
with the same man, he would become your customer. He
was your personal property after that, and girls got bonuses
if they had more than twelve dough hands a month,
and then you would get a cut of the money
when they were coming into the bar.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
But what in it? So the men, they're not getting
sex out of this, No, no, so why would they
do this? Just take girls off.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
It's all about a fantasy.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Really.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
A dohan is a sort of fantasy date that you
pretend that instead of getting paid for it, this girl
is choosing to go out with you because she likes
you and because she just wants the pleasure of your company.
So you're being paid to flatter him, basically, but it's
quite servile. And what several of the hostesses said to
(10:44):
me that European men coming into the bars found it
all very embarrassing and they wouldn't have any part in it,
because if you were talking to if you were British
and you met a British girl, you'd be embarrassed if
she started following you to the loo and offering you
water to wash your hands afterwards, and it just wouldn't work.
(11:05):
So it's a fantasy date for these men. There's nothing
shameful about ex outside marriage in Japan, even though these
men weren't on the whole having sex with the girls,
But there isn't anything shameful about it. It's more shameful
not to be married. So you would be married, but
wives would have to tolerate all this sort of extracurricular
(11:27):
behavior that was going extracurricular well, because there was something
they'd do on the way home from work. I mean
to us, it's extraordinary. Yeah, the wives were tolerated. I
mean the idea you'd take your girlfriend out on the
golf course with your wife and your family. Sometimes.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, it's a different world. Isn't it.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
It really really is.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Let's talk about Karata creata Ridgeway. She's an Australian and
she found herself dipping in and out of the hostessing
industry in the late eighties early nineties. Can you tell
us about her? She grew up in perse What do
we know about her life?
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Okay? So she grew up in Perth with her sister Sam,
and her sister Sam was teaching English. At one stage
they both worked as hostesses. Sam had worked in Sydney
at a hostess bar where she met her boyfriend Hideki,
a Japanese guy called Hideki Toyama, who was the head
(12:27):
waiter at her hostess bar in Sydney. And Careta was
her younger sister, and she had a boyfriend a liver
a Pudley and called Robert too. They Robert Finnegan, who
she'd met while backpacking in eighty eight, and then the
Careta went for the first time to Tokyo in late
(12:50):
eighty eight with her friend Linda, and she worked for
three months in a hostess bar to try and make money.
Then the following year she met up with Robert again
and they carried on traveling around the world. And then
Robert and Careta decided to settle in Sydney and they
bought somewhere to live in Clavelli and Sam went to
(13:12):
live with them. And then Kreta decided she was going
to go back to Tokyo to make some more money,
and she went back for one year, and it was
on the third time that she met Joji Bara and
she wasn't working in the same district as Lucy. She
was working at the Ayakogi Club which was in Ginza,
(13:36):
which was a much more upmarket area of Tokyo. And
her sister Sam and you can see from the pictures,
described kretas very beautiful. She said she was like a
cross between Kate Moss and Winola Ryder, and men just melted.
And when she went to the hostess bar to be hired,
the Manusan just agreed straight away on seeing Kreta for
(14:00):
her to come and work. So she'd had two successful
stints of hostessing in Tokyo before she went to work
at the bar where she met Joji.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
And she she was doing these doughhunts, these dates with me.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
She was she was and very successfully.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Tell us about the phone call that her sister received
from you know a mystery man claiming to know Careta.
It was February nineteen, nineteen two.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yes, it was Valentine's Day in nineteen ninety two, and
the last time Sam saw her sister was the morning
of February the fourteenth, where she went off to work
at the Burlitz School to teach English, and Careta disappeared
to go off to work at the bar. And that
night Sam was meeting her boyfriend Hideki, and she stayed
(14:53):
over at Hidekie, so she didn't see She didn't expect
to see Creata until the next morning, but when she
got back to the friendship house where they both lived,
a friend who was sharing the house said that a
strange call had come in from a man calling himself
a Kiera and as she and he'd said that he'd
taken Careta out for the evening and they'd gone to
(15:17):
eat shellfish, but that Creta had been taken very ill
and he dropped her off to hospital. And Sam thought
this was very odd and who is this man? And
she didn't know where to go with it, and so
she was worried all night waiting for Creta to come home.
And then the following morning she got a call from
(15:39):
Hidashima Hospital to say that this man had dropped Kreta
at a hospital and that Creta was very very ill indeed,
and could she come straight away.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Or so ill that basically the whole family came over immediately.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yes, well, well, Sam went first, not realizing how ill
her sister was, and she kept saying to Kreta, who
is Nishidah, Who is Nishidah? Who is this man that
ran the house? And she couldn't really speak to Kreta,
and Creta seemed at first to be falling asleep, and
then Sam said that she realized she was losing consciousness
(16:14):
and she was horrified and she called the staff and
then the staff said, we're very very concerned about her.
We think she might be dying. So Sam was horrified
and rang her parents in Australia and also Robert Finnegan,
who was starting in Sydney, and they both said that
they'd come straight away and come and to fly out.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
What did the doctors say was wrong with her?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
They couldn't work it out to begin with, but they
said that she had liver failure, but they couldn't work
out what it was from. And so at first they
thought she had hepatitis D, and then they changed the
diagnosis to hepatitis E, but it still didn't quite fit.
So they were very confused, and of course the only
information that they had was that they believed her to
(17:02):
have food poisoning, but that just didn't seem to fit
with anything. So Sam was getting terribly worried, and she
asked her day her boyfriend to try and find out
who this Nashidah was, because in the days while Coreta's
condition was worsening, he kept calling and kept asking after her,
and finally called and asked to speak to Kreta's mother, Annette,
(17:26):
who'd arrived by them. Anette spoke to him and they
would They agreed that they'd meet him at the airport
hotel the following week, but in the meantime, Careta's condition
worsened and worsened, until by I think it was the
nineteenth of February, the doctor said that they weren't They
did a pin prick test and they said that Creata
was brain deed and they asked them if they wanted
(17:49):
to turn off the life support machine. So they did really,
really terrible. I mean, you just can't imagine how the
family must have felt.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
There was an important detail that the dad asked happen
to Creta's body before they did that. Can you tell
us about that?
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yes, And this was crucial not only to finding out
what happened to Kreta, but also finding out what happened
to Lucy. He asked for a liver biopsy to be taken,
although they didn't wait for the liver biopsy results in
the end because they were so overwhelmed by Creta's death.
And afterwards they said they regretted that they hadn't asked
(18:27):
for a post mortem, but that they agreed in the shock,
really the shock state that they were in, for her
body to be cremated the following day.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
And the parents actually did end up going through with
that meeting, didn't they after her death?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
They did on the Sunday evening at they met him
at the airport hotel and the mother, Annette Ridgeway, when
she saw him, was really shocked because she thought Creta
couldn't possibly be interested in this middle aged man. And
he bought a diamond necklace and a ring and said
that he'd really loved Kreta and that he would have
(19:04):
loved to spend more time with her, and they were
sort of horrified by this man. And Annette said she
just kept thinking she couldn't believe Kreta would ever have
had anything to do with him.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Did the police help? Like what happened from here?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That whole week before Coreta's death, Hideki and Sam were
trying to get the police to become interested, and they
just didn't. They just kept asking Sam if Kreta was
taking drugs, to which you know, Sam was really offended
and said no, that neither of them had ever taken
drugs and it was nothing to do with that. And
the police did nothing, and in fact, they started asking
(19:43):
them what visas they were on, and just investigating Kreta
and Sam rather than try to find out who Nishida was.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And so the family just decided to go back to
Australia grieve, yes, And that's where it kind of ended
for the time being for.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Them, and Sam left. She broke up with Hideki. I mean,
it must have been really difficult for her to be
involved with a Japanese man. After water it happened to
her sister, and so she also went home, although she
came back to Tokyo Two years later.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
You're listening to true Crime Conversations with me Jemma Bass.
I'm speaking with Claire Campbell, author of the book Tokyo Hostess.
Up Next, Claire tells us the story of Lucy Blackman,
a British hostess in Tokyo who's murder by Jojiabara captured
intense media attention. So let's skip forward eighty ish years.
(20:42):
Lucy Blackman arrives in Tokyo. She's also twenty one, young,
looking to earn a lot of cash. Quickly, tell us
a bit about her because she arrived in the year
two thousand. She's British. What else do we know about her?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
She'd done very well at school, she was very bright,
she was attractive, she had three A levels. She'd gone
to work in a bank. She chose not to go
to college, but she went to work in a bank,
and then she went to work British Airways, both jobs
with her friend Louise, the one that accompanied her out
to Tokyo. And Louise had an old sister called Emma
(21:20):
who'd done hostessing very successfully and made a lot of money.
So it was Louise who put the idea to Lucy
that they should go out, and so Lucy told her
father actually and her mother that they were going to
stay with an aunt of Louise's in Tokyo, which wasn't true,
and that there was they had work were waiting for
(21:42):
them when they got there, which also wasn't true. They
just arrived at Larisa Airport and looked in Tokyo classified
for somewhere to live and a job, because they had
nowhere to live when they arrived.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
So Lucy starts working at a club called Casablanca. You've
described it in your book as being Tachi, but one
of the better ones, so reasonably good place to work.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
It was, although Lucy wasn't happy at first, if you
go by her diaries and what she told her sister,
she wasn't happy at first because she was quite competitive.
Another girl, another hostess, who met her, said that she
was quite guarded, whereas Louise was quite open. Lucy was
quite guarded and quite defensive, and she was very competitive,
(22:32):
and she felt personally that she wasn't doing as well
as Louise in that she felt, and I'm sure it
was just her perspective on it, because there was no
real evidence of that, but she felt that Louise was
a far more successful hostess than she was, and Louise
was getting dough hands, and at the end of the
first month, I think that Lucy was ranked eleven out
(22:54):
of twenty and she'd been stood up on one doughhan
and she said, how bad you have to be as
a hostess to be stood up on a doe hand.
So she was very self critical.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So I guess that kind of explains why she was
excited to get dough heads, because she was going to
go up that leaderboard exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And she did. She did. She had Suddenly, after about
a month in she started becoming more popular, and she
met an American boyfriend, a marine called Scott Fraser, and
she was very happy. And in fact, the point at
which she met Jojibara, she was doing really well. She
(23:34):
felt that she'd sort of she was now coping with
Tokyo and was managing very well. She was making quite
a lot of money, and she was popular and she
turned the corner.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Let's skip to July first, two thousand. She met a
customer for a dohan, which we now know was Joji.
But what, yes, what was Louise hearing about that date?
And that day she was getting a few phone calls
from her.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
She was because that night Lucy and Scott Fraser, her boyfriend,
were meant to be going out in a pongee with
Louise on a night off from the Casa Blanca. They
were just going to go out and enjoy themselves and
it was all planned. But Louise left the guidin house
at about lunchtime and Lucy was getting dressed and she
(24:25):
was putting on a black dress and silver jewelry and handbag,
and Louise assumed she was going on a dough hand,
but Lucy didn't say very much about it because she
was quite competitive about it and didn't want Louise to
know who she was going out with. And she said
she was going on a doughhan, but she'd be back
in plenty of time and to go out in the evening.
I think they planned to meet about seven or seven thirty.
(24:48):
And the next thing that Louise heard was a call
from Lucy to say that she was with a very
nice man somewhere by the sea and that she'd be
on time, she wouldn't be late. And that was the
last call that Louise ever had from her.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
So the only real clue she had was that she
was by the sea with.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
A mele yes yes.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
How quickly did Louise start to worry and raise the alarm?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
It was the next morning. Well, at first they were
very alarmed when she didn't come home that night, but
they assumed that she'd just stayed on the dohan. And
then the following morning she just began to get more
and more worried with no word from Lucy, and she
kept thinking what should she do? But she was worried
because she wasn't on the right visa what she'd say
(25:37):
to the police, So she left it all day Sunday,
and then on the Monday she went to the police
and said that Lucy had gone on a date with
the Japanese businessman and hadn't come home, So she was
quite concerned, but she also went to see the console
in the afternoon Ian Ferguson, the British consul, and as
(25:59):
he was very alarmed when he heard what the girls
had been doing, and he told Louise to go back
to the police and tell them the truth. And as
Louise was leaving the embassy that afternoon, she got a
strange call from a man calling himself Akira Tagaki, because
Doji Bara was always using pseudonyms and.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Dakira is the same first name he was using.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Kira was saying the first name but a different surname.
And he said not to worry about Lucy, that she
was quite safe, but that she joined a cult, and
that Louise would never hear from her again, but that
she was quite happy, and not to worry about her.
So Louise straight away, you know, thought this is mad.
You know, I'm really worried. So she tried to keep
(26:45):
him talking on the telephone and to ask more questions,
and then when he rang off, she went straight back
into the embassy and told Ian Ferguson and Ian Ferguson
panic then, and he said, you must go straight to
the police and don't bother saying it's a Japanese businessman.
Just say that your friend has been abducted and tell
(27:06):
them the full story that you're working as hostesses and
what would happened. So that was what Louise did, and
she also called home at that point and told Paul
Lucy's mother Jane, what had happened, and Jane was terribly shocked.
In factually, I think she was sick when she got
the phone call to say because she'd just been packing
(27:29):
up a parcel to send out to Lucy when she
got the call from Louise to say that Lucy had
gone missing. So it must have been a terrible, terrible
shock to her because.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
The family was never going to believe that she joined
a cult, were they?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
No? No, I mean it was rubbish from the beginning.
I mean, it just shows you what a fantasist Joji
was really to think that any family would believe that.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
It took a few days, quite a few days for
this story to blow up, but it did. It became
an international news story, thanks in part to Lucy's dad,
who just went right, We've got to get this story out.
He knew how to work the media because the police
were being as cooperative at that point. How big did
(28:14):
this story get?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It was? Tim told me afterwards that he realized when
he got to Narita Airport when he saw the numbers
of press, because what had happened was word had got
out that at first the British press thought that Lucy
was an air hostess, and then they got the full
story that she'd been working as a hostess in a
Japanese bar, which nobody had ever heard of at that
(28:39):
time in the UK. So the press went mad, particularly
the tabloids, and so there was a massive number of
press at Narisia Airport, all waiting to speak to Tim.
And he realized as he walked into the room, he said,
and saw the numbers of press there, that he could
work that to his advantage, that if there were that
(29:00):
number of press, they could all help find Bluesy. So
he decided to play it that way, and which he
did do brilliantly.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
So we've got Tim and to Lucy's sister over in
Japan kind of leading the search. The police start to
actually get on board because of all of the press,
and it turns into quite a big operation. You know,
Lucy's family's putting up posters, they even set up an
information line. It got quite serious, didn't it quite extensive?
(29:32):
That search?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
It did? It did, and they were getting a lot
of false information in as well. But the crucial information
that Sophie did get was some calls from former hostesses
who all came up with this similar story. There was
an Australian girl, there was a Canadian girl, and a
British girl who all claimed that they'd been taken to
(29:55):
an apartment by the sea and given something weird to drink,
and that they couldn't remember anything the next morning. And
one girl, the Canadian girl Donna, had clearly she was
clear that she'd been raped. But they all thought that
they been given GHB or something, that their drinks had
been spiked. And so these stories, when they put them
(30:18):
all together, seemed to be bringing this picture. Although Tim
said to me that he thought that the police, the
Japanese police, had been watching Joji for some time and
had had their eye on him, but hadn't done anything.
So we don't know really.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Why wouldn't they have done anything. They were just biding
their time for him to slip up.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Until they had evidence.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Right, Yes, well, they made an arrest in the October,
so she went missing quite a few months earlier she did.
They made an arrest, What do we know about how
they actually came to making that at rest. What evidence
led them to that? Was it these phone calls?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
It was it was the phone calls because they began
to piece together information. And also they finally traced the mobiles,
because to begin with, Tim had been pressing them to
trace the mobile calls that the Louise had got, and
(31:17):
at first they kept saying they couldn't do it and
it was a matter of data privacy, they couldn't do
anything like that. And then Tim spoke to Tony Blair,
the Prime Minister at the time, and then suddenly Derry Irvin,
the Chancellor, was onto it and he spoke to Tim
and the next minute it was all sorted and they
could trace the calls, and that led them to Joji Abara.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
So who is Joji Abara? From the outside, who was he?
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Joji Barro? He was born in nineteen fifty two. He's
actually Korean and not Japanese at all, and he was
born to a Korean who'd made a lot of money
in pachinko parlors and also in property and of taxis,
I think, but he'd made a massive amount of money
during the boom in Japan. And Joji had a very
(32:08):
weird upbringing. Was brought up in this strange house which
I went to see in Tokyo called dn En Chofu,
and he lived there with a maid by himself as
a child for years. So he had a very very
weird upbringing. And he went to university and read politics
and law, and everybody who knew him from college at
(32:29):
the time said that he was a loner and that
he never had a girlfriend, and so he was all
together a very strange character. And when the police raided
the house at den En Chofu and also two of
his other properties, they found all these notebooks and about
four hundred videotapes, all of girls that he drugged or
(32:54):
raped and what he was doing to them. And clearly
the police then had a massive amount of evidence. And
the crucial thing was that amongst the videotapes they found
one of Careta, and they also found his name in
a notebook, and in the notebook it said Carreta Ridgeway
(33:15):
too much chloroform.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
It took them a while to kind of connect the
dots there, though I didn't it in terms of Creata,
the fact that she died and that she was on
these tapes.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Sam picked up the story and was in touch with
Robert Finnegan, who was Carita's former fiancee, and they both
kept talking to another and saying, could this man be
anything to do with Creta's death? And Robert contacted the
Japanese authorities, so that brought up the name Kreta Ridgeway again,
(33:47):
and so when they found the notebooks and they found
the name Careta Ridgeway too much chloroform, they put everything
together and that led them to thinking that he'd killed Creata.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Next, we discuss a Bara's chilling notebook and disturbing videotapes,
which ultimately led police to connect him to Creta's murder.
Obviously we're focusing in on Lucy and Kreta, but there
were four hundred tapes, potentially four hundred women. What happened
(34:24):
to them?
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Well, this is what really intrigues me, And you know,
I think there's another story there because a lot of
these women they don't know. The police tried to contact
those that they could trace, but there must be lots
of women who read the story and they must be
wondering was it then or what happened? Could he have
(34:45):
killed other people? And we don't know, I mean, we
just don't know, and it's really really horrible.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Idea not to go into too much graphic detail, but
the videos all kind of followed a similar pattern in
that he would videotape them being naked, their faces covered,
his face covered, and then him sexually assaulting them.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Right, he used to put on a mask and so
he would sort of prance about naked with this horrible
mask on. And in fact, on the tape of Careta,
they wouldn't show the whole tape to her mother because
obviously it would be too distressing. But she saw her
daughter like a doll like coming round from the chloroform
(35:33):
and tried to sit up and then just falling back again,
and he was just dancing around her. But Joji himself
said he couldn't do women who are conscious, and the
only way he had of having sex with these women
was to render them unconscious and then have sex with them.
And in the notebooks he clearly was you know, I
(35:56):
don't know what his diagnosis was, but you'd think he
must have been psychotic because he was saying, you know,
that he wanted he obviously wanted revenge on women for something,
and his ambition was to have sex with five hundred
women by the time he was fifty.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
So we've got all of these tapes, they've obviously got
all of this evidence of the sexual assaults and the rapes.
Then they kind of link him to Kreta. They're able
to charge him with that but we still don't have
charges for Lucy. We don't know where Lucy is. But
there were as his name started to make the headlines,
a lot of stories that started to come out about him.
Can you tell us some of those? There was a
(36:35):
particularly haunting one in early July at one of his
seaside apartments involving him half naked, concrete, a dog.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes. People began to phone into the police and they
began to put these stories together. At first, the caretaker
reported that Joji had changed the locks without authorization because
he was meant to tell the caretaker when you change
the locks of one of his apartments at the Zushi
Marina the Blue Sea, and he hadn't asked permission. He
(37:10):
was also seen buying cement and a sort of hoe
or a shovel by somebody else. Another woman reported that
she'd seen a man matching Joji's description walking down a
beach with a tall, thin, blonde woman, and the blonde
woman didn't look very happy. They didn't look as though
if they were a couple, and Lucy was walking behind him.
(37:32):
And so all these stories put together led the police
to get more evidence against him.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So how did they end up linking him to Lucy,
did it take finding her body, which they did eventually.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
They found her body eventually in the caves which they
had searched before. And then they went back when all
these stories started to come in and they found Lucy's
head entombed in this cave that I've been to, which
is really sort of bleak place down by the sea,
which is where he'd buried her.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
And he'd he dismembered her.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It was hod Yes, he dismembered her. They also found
blonde hairs which they matched with DNA from Jane Blackman
and other members of the family, which couldn't prove conclusively
that it was Lucy's but very close. So they knew
then that he dismembered her body. They knew that she'd
been to the flat because they found a photo negative
(38:35):
which showed Lucy by looking out to see from the
window in his apartment in Zushi Marina, not not at
the Blue Sea apartment. So he'd obviously taken her from
the Zushi Marina to the Blue Sea apartment where he
must have dismembered her. So they had all this evidence,
but what they didn't have was a tape of Lucy,
(38:57):
and we don't know what happened to the tape. He
must have made a tape of Lucy, but we don't know.
He probably destroyed that because that was never found. So
they couldn't get him in the trial, which took six years.
But they couldn't get They couldn't convict him of Lucy's murder.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Only that he'd dismembered her, only that he dismembered her.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
But what they could the reason they could convict him
of Creta's murder was all down to the liver biopsy
because Robert Finnegan, her fiance, a former Creta's former fiance,
remembered the liver biopsy, and the liver biopsy was found
and looked at, and when it was analyzed it showed chloroform,
(39:43):
So that proved conclusively. They'd got the tape, they've got
Creta's name, and now they've got the liver biopsy, which
proved that he'd given her chloroform.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
It seems that he didn't mean to kill these women.
That he's motive is sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
He didn't in that sense. He wasn't a serial killer.
But it was just so gruesome and awful was the
fact that he couldn't have sex with them unless they
were unconscious, so he had find a means to render
them unconscious. It was chloroform that kills Creator because he
gave her too much.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Do we know what killed Lucy? Would it have been
chloroform as well?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Probably we don't know what he gave her.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Because then I guess to jump from you know, he's
sexually assaulting these people, but then to do what he
did to Lucy's body, like he is just a.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Oh exactly, like you think, no, who could do that?
Who could do that?
Speaker 1 (40:36):
We touched on the judicial system in Japan in that
the trial took six years, and that's not like here
in Australia. You might wait in prison for three years
and then finally go to trial, which might be a
few months. But this was him in court numerous times
over six seven years. That is a long drawn out
(40:59):
process and.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
It's not unusual. The longest trial I think was twelve years.
Well somebody, and the assumption is you're guilty, so it's
just all question of repeated, repeated questioning until you admit
your bills. But Joji will never come out. I mean
the Japanese police have said to me, he'll never come
(41:21):
out of prison. He got a life sentence, but which
I know in this country doesn't necessarily mean life at all.
But they said he will never come out of prison.
They would always find a reason to keep in there.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And what was Joji like in court? Because he took
to the stand quite a bit. He had quite a
bit to say that was very damaging to the families.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
It was, it was all bizarre. He said that all
the girls had had sex with him willingly, that they
were all on drugs, they were all, you know, drug
addal prostitutes who were just having sex for money, and
that it was consenting, and that said terrible things about
all of them.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
An interesting kind of fact I read in your book
was that going to his trial became fashionable.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yes, yes, that's right, because it was the big story
at the time, and even over here the papers kept
leaving it and picking it up again. You know, on
a dull news day it would be like, oh, well,
what's happening in Japan with Jojiobara because they knew the
trial was taking so long.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
But Japanese couples were like going on dates and sitting
in the courtroom bizarre.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Which is again very bizarre. To ask, isn't it? It's gruesome.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
So in April two thousand and seven, he was given
life in prison, as you've said, for Kreta's death and
eight charges of rape.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
But he was.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Actually acquitted of Lucy's murder in that instance, he was.
That must have been so shocking for Tim and the
rest of the family.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
It was, it was, and the Ridgeways were equally upset
because obviously they'd bonded over losing two daughters, and the
Ridgeways were equally upset that he wore wasn't although they
were satisfied that he was found guilty of Creator's murder,
that Lucy wasn't. It was a terrible thing for the family.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
But that was rectified the following year.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
It was. It was because they it's more or less
we have a phrase for it here. I'm just trying
to think what the phrase is. But it's like beyond
reasonable doubt that the fact they knew Lucy was in
the flat, they found her hair, he dismembered the body,
so the assumption was that he had somehow caused her death.
(43:47):
He wasn't ever convicted of Lucy's murder as such, but
of causing her death and disposing the body.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Another thing I wanted to touch on was the payments
that both of the dads actually kind of took or
thought about taking, which was it's a kind of a
thing that happens in the Japanese system. Can you explain
what that was.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
It's sort of they feel that they've offended you. It's
like your honor has been damaged by the death of
a family member, and so it's quite common to pay.
I mean, to ask him, it seems like compensation, and
that was why the families didn't want to take it,
particularly the mothers. But Tim explained it to me. I mean,
(44:32):
it calls a terrible falling out in their family. But
Tim explained to me that he'd had to leave his
job and he stopped work the whole time he was
searching for Lucy, and he needed money as well to
continue the search for Lucy. So it had cost him
personally an awful lot of money. And he said he
(44:52):
felt that if he accepted this money on behalf of
his children, he could give it to the family and
that it would help him to support Rupert and Sophie
lose his brother and sister.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
But that money was coming from Joji or Jogi's defense team.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yes, it's it's a difficult one, isn't it. And Jane
was terribly upset Lucy's mother and.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
The courts kind of no, this is happening. It's a
regular part of the kind of process and it doesn't
affect the kind of outcome. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
That's correct? But Sam said to me that I think
when her father, I think her father did accept some
money in the end, and they said they would only
do it on condition that it didn't mean it didn't
absolve Jojio Bar of any guilt for Kreta's death.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Lucy Blackman's name was everywhere. Obviously, her family, her dad
did so much to get her story out there, the
search out there. Her face is very familiar, but Coreta
she wasn't as familiar. And many people today who might
remember Lucy's story might not remember her story. Why do
(46:08):
you think that is?
Speaker 2 (46:09):
I think because I just didn't receive so much publicity.
And I don't really know why. I mean, other than
the fact that Tim went to Australia and it got
the world's press. But I don't know why. I suppose
because with Lucy was she was missing and that involved
(46:29):
the press, you know, where is she? Where is she?
Where is she? Whereas with Coretakreta had supposedly died in
hospital and disappeared, and then you know, she was never
missing for any period. She went out on the date
with Joji Barr and then she was in hospital and
then she died. So I think the story just didn't
(46:50):
get picked up. And certainly, you know, as I said,
it just wasn't covered here at all. I didn't know
until Mary Claire asked me to go out and cover
the story about Kreta Ridgeway. And it was such a tragic,
tragic story, and she was such a lovely girl, you know,
I feel it it's terrible that she should be gotten
(47:10):
in this way out and by her family.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Did the depravity of what Joji did to not just
Lucy into Karata, but all of these women, did it
help to kind of clean up Japan's sex industry a bit,
or at least kind of discourage women from joining certain
parts of the industry.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
It did, It did very much. So I think that
after Lucy's death they went into Rapongie and everything was
cleaned up massively, and people I know have been there
since then said it's changed totally today and that you
have to have there's very strict rules about being a hostess,
(47:52):
and you can't go off and not say who you're with,
and they keep a track of the men that are
coming into the bars. And also I think the whole
hostess culture declined after Lucy, you know, because people no
longer felt that it was safe.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
What did you take away from Dick diving into this story?
Because you went to Japan, you went to these bars,
you saw everything, You visited all of the houses that
Joji was at. It's such a complex case and also
such a different criminal system to what you're used to
in the UK or what we're used to do in Australia.
What stays with you from doing this story?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
I think just how different Japanese culture is still to
us really, and that you know, to Joji was such
a monster, He was such a to a degree that
we find very different fathom in a way that we
could understand some British murders. I think this is still
(48:48):
so bizarre to us. The whole thing is a bizarre story.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I did watch a Netflix documentary about Lucy's story in particular,
and the Japanese investigators. This is a story that's really
stayed with them as well, and they've visited Lucy's family.
I'm not sure about creators, but it has been something
that has had a really big effect on not just
the families, but also the police and everyone else that
(49:15):
worked on it.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Oh, very much so. And what really touched me when
I went out to the beach where they found Las's
body was there a jar. It's a nest cafe jar
or something, an empty coffee jar, and every day Japanese
people put fresh flowers there, and I believe that's still
the case. I have a friend Barbara, who still lives
(49:38):
in Tokyo, and she says it's still the case today
that Japanese people feel that Tokyo and Japan should have
been somewhere safe that people families could send their daughters to,
and they feel it very deeply.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Thanks to Claire for helping us to tell this story.
True Crime Conversations is a Mum of mea podcast hosted
and produced by me Jemma Buss and Talie Blackman, with
audio design by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation
You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters. This podcast was
recorded on It's close to midnight on a Wednesday evening
in early July two thousand and Japanese police are knocking
at the door of number four oh one at an
(00:33):
apartment complex in the seaside town of Abaratzibo, about an
hour and a half from Tokyo. The man leasing it
is rarely there and tonight neighbors can hear thumping and
banging coming from inside. When one of them knocked. The
lights on inside were swiftly turned off, so four policemen
are here to check it out. After several demands to
(00:55):
be let in, finally the door creaks open. Standing there
is a half naked man breathing heavily with beads of
sweat on his face. He's covered in dust and dirt.
Behind him, off us can see chips of what appears
to be concrete and a large linen bag with something
(01:15):
inside it. I'm retiling my bathroom, he tells them. They
ask to come in and see, but the man gets
agitated and refuses to let them in. They don't push
it he's obviously not an intruder, so they leave him
to it. What they don't realize is the sinister scene
they've just witnessed, because the half naked man is Joji Abara,
(01:41):
and pretty soon he's going to be charged with murder,
manslaughter and implicated in the horrific sexual assaults of as
many as four hundred women. I'm Jemma Bath and this
is True Crime Conversations among of mere podcast exploring the
(02:04):
world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who
know the most about them. Ridgeway from Australia and Lucy
Blackman from England touched down in the bright lights of
Japan eight years apart. Both went with a plan to
work for a few months in Tokyo's super exclusive nightclubs
as a hostess, earn a bunch of cash, fund their
(02:26):
travels and adventures around the world, and then return to
their lives in their respective countries and start building their futures.
They were both twenty one, beautiful and full of dreams.
It's a pretty normal post schooling trope leave and explore
the world before settling into a life of study and career.
(02:46):
For Karita in the eighties and Lucy in the two thousands,
Japan was sold to them as a safe place to go.
In fact, the hostessing world was sold to them as safe,
despite it being on the fringes of the lucrative sex industry.
But for these two women, it was anything but, because
they found themselves coming face to face with a sadistic
(03:08):
criminal mastermind who hid behind flashy cars and suits. While
they were two of hundreds of victims, they were the
only ones that we know about that also lost their lives.
Claire Campbell is the author of Tokyo Hostess. Inside the
shocking world of Tokyo nightclub hostessing, she explores the stories
(03:29):
of Careta and Lucy, the complicated Japanese sex industry, and
the serial rapist who sparked an international investigation. Claire joins us, now, Claire,
can you take me inside the lure of hostessing in Japan?
Why are young women, particularly Western women, drawn to this industry.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
It was a fantastic opportunity for young women, or it
seemed to be at the time. It was a way
to go abroad, somewhere exotic, and to make lots of
money in a very what seemed a very easy and
a very safe way. And it was the message coming
from Tokyo at the time was it was safe, safe, safe,
(04:17):
and it wasn't a sexual transaction. They were just going
in the manner of it would have been the closest
analogy would be geisha girls to go and talk and
light men's cigarettes and give them a drink and just
chat to them and get paid a relatively large amount
of money. I mean, Lucy was being paid between twenty
(04:38):
and forty pounds an hour, and Lucy at the time
had a seven thousand pound credit card debt. So she
said to her sister, I'm just going to go out
there and I'm going to make as much money as
I can in a shorter time as I can.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I know you say that it's not the sex industry technically,
but it's kind of on the fringes. I've heard it
described as and when you dive into the actual sex
industry in Japan, it's called the water trade. If I'm
saying that right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It is the water trade. But there's various degrees of
the water trade. So Lucy was and Careta were at
the very top, which is the girls in the clubs.
Then there's the cabaret clubs, and then underneath there's what
are called snack girls, and below that you're really getting
(05:29):
into like blowjob bars line, so that there are all these.
The Japanese have a very strange attitude towards sex. So
they love sex. They don't see anything wrong in sex,
but it has to be ordered and they have to
have rules about it, and they don't like people not
(05:49):
obeying the rules. So the bars that Lucy and Kreta
worked in, they wouldn't expect the girls to have sex,
and in fact, if the girls suggested it, they'd be
quite shocked, even though the other way round. Occasionally people
were paid for sex. But in the bars where Lucy
and Creata worked, not really, not really. I mean the
(06:10):
men would try, but that they would be quite shot
themselves and probably go run away if the girls agree
to it.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I think all of us have heard about, you know,
the vending machines with used women's underwear, but it goes
much further than that. You kind of explored erotic fish
women image class, right, take me in there. What are
some of the weirder things that the Japanese sex industry
can offer you?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That there are some really really weird, like going to
strange bars where people dress up. Cosplay is a big thing,
and the borders of pedophilia as well. They have images
of children but children in like weird costumes and people
can go and you can all dress up and people
(07:00):
pretend to have sex with fish. Having sex with fish
is a big thing. Having sex with octopi is also
a big thing. I mean, it seems very very weird
to us that it's bordering on sort of bestiality and
things that we just wouldn't go near.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But I guess it explains just how big business sex
is in Japan because it does go into all of
these different areas.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It does. It does. It's massively cleaned up since the
time when Lucy was there. But Rapongi, where Lucy was working,
was the wild wild West, as one girl who'd been
a hostessa described it to me afterwards, and she said
her sister worked there after Lucy's death, and it was
completely different because at this time it was largely unregulated.
(07:51):
The hostesses were largely unregulated. A lot were working on
working visas, which they weren't technically allowed to do. You
weren't allowed to either have a tourist visa or a
working visa to work in the clubs, so it was
all bordering on illegal anyway.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
But did Japanese officials kind of know that was happening
in turn a blind eye? Or how did that work?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Did and turned a blind eye to it? Right? And
when Lucy went missing, her friend Louise went the embassy
that the consul was really shocked that it was going on.
He had no idea that girls gave up business cards.
The first thing you did when you went into the
hostess bar, when you met a man was to give
him your card. But nobody knew who you were with,
(08:39):
and there was no way of checking who you'd gone
off with, which is what of course Lucy did and
Careta had done before her.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, because I want to back to hostessing. You know,
it's in a club setting, but part of being a
hostess was going on these dates outside of the club,
which was quite a regular thing to do, wasn't it.
Can you explain that concept?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yes, it was called a dohan, which was technically a
paid date. So a man would pick you from what
was called a doggie box. There was a group of
girls all waiting to be chosen, and a man would
pick one girl and then if he came the next
night and he picked that girl again and kept wanting
(09:25):
to see her, he'd ask her on a dough hand
and a date and he'd take her. It would really
bizarre things. I mean quite often. These were middle aged
businessmen and they'd take the girls out to the golf
course or something, sometimes with their families, and the girls
would go on a date with them, or it could
be to dinner or to a bar. And if you
(09:48):
got you were expected to get at least four dough
hands a month. And if you had two dough hands
with the same man, he would become your customer. He
was your personal property after that, and girls got bonuses
if they had more than twelve dough hands a month,
and then you would get a cut of the money
when they were coming into the bar.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
But what in it? So the men, they're not getting
sex out of this, No, no, so why would they
do this? Just take girls off.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
It's all about a fantasy.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Really.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
A dohan is a sort of fantasy date that you
pretend that instead of getting paid for it, this girl
is choosing to go out with you because she likes
you and because she just wants the pleasure of your company.
So you're being paid to flatter him, basically, but it's
quite servile. And what several of the hostesses said to
(10:44):
me that European men coming into the bars found it
all very embarrassing and they wouldn't have any part in it,
because if you were talking to if you were British
and you met a British girl, you'd be embarrassed if
she started following you to the loo and offering you
water to wash your hands afterwards, and it just wouldn't work.
(11:05):
So it's a fantasy date for these men. There's nothing
shameful about ex outside marriage in Japan, even though these
men weren't on the whole having sex with the girls,
But there isn't anything shameful about it. It's more shameful
not to be married. So you would be married, but
wives would have to tolerate all this sort of extracurricular
(11:27):
behavior that was going extracurricular well, because there was something
they'd do on the way home from work. I mean
to us, it's extraordinary. Yeah, the wives were tolerated. I
mean the idea you'd take your girlfriend out on the
golf course with your wife and your family. Sometimes.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, it's a different world. Isn't it.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
It really really is.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Let's talk about Karata creata Ridgeway. She's an Australian and
she found herself dipping in and out of the hostessing
industry in the late eighties early nineties. Can you tell
us about her? She grew up in perse What do
we know about her life?
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Okay? So she grew up in Perth with her sister Sam,
and her sister Sam was teaching English. At one stage
they both worked as hostesses. Sam had worked in Sydney
at a hostess bar where she met her boyfriend Hideki,
a Japanese guy called Hideki Toyama, who was the head
(12:27):
waiter at her hostess bar in Sydney. And Careta was
her younger sister, and she had a boyfriend a liver
a Pudley and called Robert too. They Robert Finnegan, who
she'd met while backpacking in eighty eight, and then the
Careta went for the first time to Tokyo in late
(12:50):
eighty eight with her friend Linda, and she worked for
three months in a hostess bar to try and make money.
Then the following year she met up with Robert again
and they carried on traveling around the world. And then
Robert and Careta decided to settle in Sydney and they
bought somewhere to live in Clavelli and Sam went to
(13:12):
live with them. And then Kreta decided she was going
to go back to Tokyo to make some more money,
and she went back for one year, and it was
on the third time that she met Joji Bara and
she wasn't working in the same district as Lucy. She
was working at the Ayakogi Club which was in Ginza,
(13:36):
which was a much more upmarket area of Tokyo. And
her sister Sam and you can see from the pictures,
described kretas very beautiful. She said she was like a
cross between Kate Moss and Winola Ryder, and men just melted.
And when she went to the hostess bar to be hired,
the Manusan just agreed straight away on seeing Kreta for
(14:00):
her to come and work. So she'd had two successful
stints of hostessing in Tokyo before she went to work
at the bar where she met Joji.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
And she she was doing these doughhunts, these dates with me.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
She was she was and very successfully.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Tell us about the phone call that her sister received
from you know a mystery man claiming to know Careta.
It was February nineteen, nineteen two.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yes, it was Valentine's Day in nineteen ninety two, and
the last time Sam saw her sister was the morning
of February the fourteenth, where she went off to work
at the Burlitz School to teach English, and Careta disappeared
to go off to work at the bar. And that
night Sam was meeting her boyfriend Hideki, and she stayed
(14:53):
over at Hidekie, so she didn't see She didn't expect
to see Creata until the next morning, but when she
got back to the friendship house where they both lived,
a friend who was sharing the house said that a
strange call had come in from a man calling himself
a Kiera and as she and he'd said that he'd
taken Careta out for the evening and they'd gone to
(15:17):
eat shellfish, but that Creta had been taken very ill
and he dropped her off to hospital. And Sam thought
this was very odd and who is this man? And
she didn't know where to go with it, and so
she was worried all night waiting for Creta to come home.
And then the following morning she got a call from
(15:39):
Hidashima Hospital to say that this man had dropped Kreta
at a hospital and that Creta was very very ill indeed,
and could she come straight away.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Or so ill that basically the whole family came over immediately.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yes, well, well, Sam went first, not realizing how ill
her sister was, and she kept saying to Kreta, who
is Nishidah, Who is Nishidah? Who is this man that
ran the house? And she couldn't really speak to Kreta,
and Creta seemed at first to be falling asleep, and
then Sam said that she realized she was losing consciousness
(16:14):
and she was horrified and she called the staff and
then the staff said, we're very very concerned about her.
We think she might be dying. So Sam was horrified
and rang her parents in Australia and also Robert Finnegan,
who was starting in Sydney, and they both said that
they'd come straight away and come and to fly out.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
What did the doctors say was wrong with her?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
They couldn't work it out to begin with, but they
said that she had liver failure, but they couldn't work
out what it was from. And so at first they
thought she had hepatitis D, and then they changed the
diagnosis to hepatitis E, but it still didn't quite fit.
So they were very confused, and of course the only
information that they had was that they believed her to
(17:02):
have food poisoning, but that just didn't seem to fit
with anything. So Sam was getting terribly worried, and she
asked her day her boyfriend to try and find out
who this Nashidah was, because in the days while Coreta's
condition was worsening, he kept calling and kept asking after her,
and finally called and asked to speak to Kreta's mother, Annette,
(17:26):
who'd arrived by them. Anette spoke to him and they
would They agreed that they'd meet him at the airport
hotel the following week, but in the meantime, Careta's condition
worsened and worsened, until by I think it was the
nineteenth of February, the doctor said that they weren't They
did a pin prick test and they said that Creata
was brain deed and they asked them if they wanted
(17:49):
to turn off the life support machine. So they did really,
really terrible. I mean, you just can't imagine how the
family must have felt.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
There was an important detail that the dad asked happen
to Creta's body before they did that. Can you tell
us about that?
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yes, And this was crucial not only to finding out
what happened to Kreta, but also finding out what happened
to Lucy. He asked for a liver biopsy to be taken,
although they didn't wait for the liver biopsy results in
the end because they were so overwhelmed by Creta's death.
And afterwards they said they regretted that they hadn't asked
(18:27):
for a post mortem, but that they agreed in the shock,
really the shock state that they were in, for her
body to be cremated the following day.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
And the parents actually did end up going through with
that meeting, didn't they after her death?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
They did on the Sunday evening at they met him
at the airport hotel and the mother, Annette Ridgeway, when
she saw him, was really shocked because she thought Creta
couldn't possibly be interested in this middle aged man. And
he bought a diamond necklace and a ring and said
that he'd really loved Kreta and that he would have
(19:04):
loved to spend more time with her, and they were
sort of horrified by this man. And Annette said she
just kept thinking she couldn't believe Kreta would ever have
had anything to do with him.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Did the police help? Like what happened from here?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That whole week before Coreta's death, Hideki and Sam were
trying to get the police to become interested, and they
just didn't. They just kept asking Sam if Kreta was
taking drugs, to which you know, Sam was really offended
and said no, that neither of them had ever taken
drugs and it was nothing to do with that. And
the police did nothing, and in fact, they started asking
(19:43):
them what visas they were on, and just investigating Kreta
and Sam rather than try to find out who Nishida was.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And so the family just decided to go back to
Australia grieve, yes, And that's where it kind of ended
for the time being for.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Them, and Sam left. She broke up with Hideki. I mean,
it must have been really difficult for her to be
involved with a Japanese man. After water it happened to
her sister, and so she also went home, although she
came back to Tokyo Two years later.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
You're listening to true Crime Conversations with me Jemma Bass.
I'm speaking with Claire Campbell, author of the book Tokyo Hostess.
Up Next, Claire tells us the story of Lucy Blackman,
a British hostess in Tokyo who's murder by Jojiabara captured
intense media attention. So let's skip forward eighty ish years.
(20:42):
Lucy Blackman arrives in Tokyo. She's also twenty one, young,
looking to earn a lot of cash. Quickly, tell us
a bit about her because she arrived in the year
two thousand. She's British. What else do we know about her?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
She'd done very well at school, she was very bright,
she was attractive, she had three A levels. She'd gone
to work in a bank. She chose not to go
to college, but she went to work in a bank,
and then she went to work British Airways, both jobs
with her friend Louise, the one that accompanied her out
to Tokyo. And Louise had an old sister called Emma
(21:20):
who'd done hostessing very successfully and made a lot of money.
So it was Louise who put the idea to Lucy
that they should go out, and so Lucy told her
father actually and her mother that they were going to
stay with an aunt of Louise's in Tokyo, which wasn't true,
and that there was they had work were waiting for
(21:42):
them when they got there, which also wasn't true. They
just arrived at Larisa Airport and looked in Tokyo classified
for somewhere to live and a job, because they had
nowhere to live when they arrived.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
So Lucy starts working at a club called Casablanca. You've
described it in your book as being Tachi, but one
of the better ones, so reasonably good place to work.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
It was, although Lucy wasn't happy at first, if you
go by her diaries and what she told her sister,
she wasn't happy at first because she was quite competitive.
Another girl, another hostess, who met her, said that she
was quite guarded, whereas Louise was quite open. Lucy was
quite guarded and quite defensive, and she was very competitive,
(22:32):
and she felt personally that she wasn't doing as well
as Louise in that she felt, and I'm sure it
was just her perspective on it, because there was no
real evidence of that, but she felt that Louise was
a far more successful hostess than she was, and Louise
was getting dough hands, and at the end of the
first month, I think that Lucy was ranked eleven out
(22:54):
of twenty and she'd been stood up on one doughhan
and she said, how bad you have to be as
a hostess to be stood up on a doe hand.
So she was very self critical.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So I guess that kind of explains why she was
excited to get dough heads, because she was going to
go up that leaderboard exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And she did. She did. She had Suddenly, after about
a month in she started becoming more popular, and she
met an American boyfriend, a marine called Scott Fraser, and
she was very happy. And in fact, the point at
which she met Jojibara, she was doing really well. She
(23:34):
felt that she'd sort of she was now coping with
Tokyo and was managing very well. She was making quite
a lot of money, and she was popular and she
turned the corner.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Let's skip to July first, two thousand. She met a
customer for a dohan, which we now know was Joji.
But what, yes, what was Louise hearing about that date?
And that day she was getting a few phone calls
from her.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
She was because that night Lucy and Scott Fraser, her boyfriend,
were meant to be going out in a pongee with
Louise on a night off from the Casa Blanca. They
were just going to go out and enjoy themselves and
it was all planned. But Louise left the guidin house
at about lunchtime and Lucy was getting dressed and she
(24:25):
was putting on a black dress and silver jewelry and handbag,
and Louise assumed she was going on a dough hand,
but Lucy didn't say very much about it because she
was quite competitive about it and didn't want Louise to
know who she was going out with. And she said
she was going on a doughhan, but she'd be back
in plenty of time and to go out in the evening.
I think they planned to meet about seven or seven thirty.
(24:48):
And the next thing that Louise heard was a call
from Lucy to say that she was with a very
nice man somewhere by the sea and that she'd be
on time, she wouldn't be late. And that was the
last call that Louise ever had from her.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
So the only real clue she had was that she
was by the sea with.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
A mele yes yes.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
How quickly did Louise start to worry and raise the alarm?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
It was the next morning. Well, at first they were
very alarmed when she didn't come home that night, but
they assumed that she'd just stayed on the dohan. And
then the following morning she just began to get more
and more worried with no word from Lucy, and she
kept thinking what should she do? But she was worried
because she wasn't on the right visa what she'd say
(25:37):
to the police, So she left it all day Sunday,
and then on the Monday she went to the police
and said that Lucy had gone on a date with
the Japanese businessman and hadn't come home, So she was
quite concerned, but she also went to see the console
in the afternoon Ian Ferguson, the British consul, and as
(25:59):
he was very alarmed when he heard what the girls
had been doing, and he told Louise to go back
to the police and tell them the truth. And as
Louise was leaving the embassy that afternoon, she got a
strange call from a man calling himself Akira Tagaki, because
Doji Bara was always using pseudonyms and.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Dakira is the same first name he was using.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Kira was saying the first name but a different surname.
And he said not to worry about Lucy, that she
was quite safe, but that she joined a cult, and
that Louise would never hear from her again, but that
she was quite happy, and not to worry about her.
So Louise straight away, you know, thought this is mad.
You know, I'm really worried. So she tried to keep
(26:45):
him talking on the telephone and to ask more questions,
and then when he rang off, she went straight back
into the embassy and told Ian Ferguson and Ian Ferguson
panic then, and he said, you must go straight to
the police and don't bother saying it's a Japanese businessman.
Just say that your friend has been abducted and tell
(27:06):
them the full story that you're working as hostesses and
what would happened. So that was what Louise did, and
she also called home at that point and told Paul
Lucy's mother Jane, what had happened, and Jane was terribly shocked.
In factually, I think she was sick when she got
the phone call to say because she'd just been packing
(27:29):
up a parcel to send out to Lucy when she
got the call from Louise to say that Lucy had
gone missing. So it must have been a terrible, terrible
shock to her because.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
The family was never going to believe that she joined
a cult, were they?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
No? No, I mean it was rubbish from the beginning.
I mean, it just shows you what a fantasist Joji
was really to think that any family would believe that.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
It took a few days, quite a few days for
this story to blow up, but it did. It became
an international news story, thanks in part to Lucy's dad,
who just went right, We've got to get this story out.
He knew how to work the media because the police
were being as cooperative at that point. How big did
(28:14):
this story get?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It was? Tim told me afterwards that he realized when
he got to Narita Airport when he saw the numbers
of press, because what had happened was word had got
out that at first the British press thought that Lucy
was an air hostess, and then they got the full
story that she'd been working as a hostess in a
Japanese bar, which nobody had ever heard of at that
(28:39):
time in the UK. So the press went mad, particularly
the tabloids, and so there was a massive number of
press at Narisia Airport, all waiting to speak to Tim.
And he realized as he walked into the room, he said,
and saw the numbers of press there, that he could
work that to his advantage, that if there were that
(29:00):
number of press, they could all help find Bluesy. So
he decided to play it that way, and which he
did do brilliantly.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
So we've got Tim and to Lucy's sister over in
Japan kind of leading the search. The police start to
actually get on board because of all of the press,
and it turns into quite a big operation. You know,
Lucy's family's putting up posters, they even set up an
information line. It got quite serious, didn't it quite extensive?
(29:32):
That search?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
It did? It did, and they were getting a lot
of false information in as well. But the crucial information
that Sophie did get was some calls from former hostesses
who all came up with this similar story. There was
an Australian girl, there was a Canadian girl, and a
British girl who all claimed that they'd been taken to
(29:55):
an apartment by the sea and given something weird to drink,
and that they couldn't remember anything the next morning. And
one girl, the Canadian girl Donna, had clearly she was
clear that she'd been raped. But they all thought that
they been given GHB or something, that their drinks had
been spiked. And so these stories, when they put them
(30:18):
all together, seemed to be bringing this picture. Although Tim
said to me that he thought that the police, the
Japanese police, had been watching Joji for some time and
had had their eye on him, but hadn't done anything.
So we don't know really.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Why wouldn't they have done anything. They were just biding
their time for him to slip up.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Until they had evidence.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Right, Yes, well, they made an arrest in the October,
so she went missing quite a few months earlier she did.
They made an arrest, What do we know about how
they actually came to making that at rest. What evidence
led them to that? Was it these phone calls?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
It was it was the phone calls because they began
to piece together information. And also they finally traced the mobiles,
because to begin with, Tim had been pressing them to
trace the mobile calls that the Louise had got, and
(31:17):
at first they kept saying they couldn't do it and
it was a matter of data privacy, they couldn't do
anything like that. And then Tim spoke to Tony Blair,
the Prime Minister at the time, and then suddenly Derry Irvin,
the Chancellor, was onto it and he spoke to Tim
and the next minute it was all sorted and they
could trace the calls, and that led them to Joji Abara.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
So who is Joji Abara? From the outside, who was he?
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Joji Barro? He was born in nineteen fifty two. He's
actually Korean and not Japanese at all, and he was
born to a Korean who'd made a lot of money
in pachinko parlors and also in property and of taxis,
I think, but he'd made a massive amount of money
during the boom in Japan. And Joji had a very
(32:08):
weird upbringing. Was brought up in this strange house which
I went to see in Tokyo called dn En Chofu,
and he lived there with a maid by himself as
a child for years. So he had a very very
weird upbringing. And he went to university and read politics
and law, and everybody who knew him from college at
(32:29):
the time said that he was a loner and that
he never had a girlfriend, and so he was all
together a very strange character. And when the police raided
the house at den En Chofu and also two of
his other properties, they found all these notebooks and about
four hundred videotapes, all of girls that he drugged or
(32:54):
raped and what he was doing to them. And clearly
the police then had a massive amount of evidence. And
the crucial thing was that amongst the videotapes they found
one of Careta, and they also found his name in
a notebook, and in the notebook it said Carreta Ridgeway
(33:15):
too much chloroform.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
It took them a while to kind of connect the
dots there, though I didn't it in terms of Creata,
the fact that she died and that she was on
these tapes.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Sam picked up the story and was in touch with
Robert Finnegan, who was Carita's former fiancee, and they both
kept talking to another and saying, could this man be
anything to do with Creta's death? And Robert contacted the
Japanese authorities, so that brought up the name Kreta Ridgeway again,
(33:47):
and so when they found the notebooks and they found
the name Careta Ridgeway too much chloroform, they put everything
together and that led them to thinking that he'd killed Creata.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Next, we discuss a Bara's chilling notebook and disturbing videotapes,
which ultimately led police to connect him to Creta's murder.
Obviously we're focusing in on Lucy and Kreta, but there
were four hundred tapes, potentially four hundred women. What happened
(34:24):
to them?
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Well, this is what really intrigues me, And you know,
I think there's another story there because a lot of
these women they don't know. The police tried to contact
those that they could trace, but there must be lots
of women who read the story and they must be
wondering was it then or what happened? Could he have
(34:45):
killed other people? And we don't know, I mean, we
just don't know, and it's really really horrible.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Idea not to go into too much graphic detail, but
the videos all kind of followed a similar pattern in
that he would videotape them being naked, their faces covered,
his face covered, and then him sexually assaulting them.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Right, he used to put on a mask and so
he would sort of prance about naked with this horrible
mask on. And in fact, on the tape of Careta,
they wouldn't show the whole tape to her mother because
obviously it would be too distressing. But she saw her
daughter like a doll like coming round from the chloroform
(35:33):
and tried to sit up and then just falling back again,
and he was just dancing around her. But Joji himself
said he couldn't do women who are conscious, and the
only way he had of having sex with these women
was to render them unconscious and then have sex with them.
And in the notebooks he clearly was you know, I
(35:56):
don't know what his diagnosis was, but you'd think he
must have been psychotic because he was saying, you know,
that he wanted he obviously wanted revenge on women for something,
and his ambition was to have sex with five hundred
women by the time he was fifty.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
So we've got all of these tapes, they've obviously got
all of this evidence of the sexual assaults and the rapes.
Then they kind of link him to Kreta. They're able
to charge him with that but we still don't have
charges for Lucy. We don't know where Lucy is. But
there were as his name started to make the headlines,
a lot of stories that started to come out about him.
Can you tell us some of those? There was a
(36:35):
particularly haunting one in early July at one of his
seaside apartments involving him half naked, concrete, a dog.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes. People began to phone into the police and they
began to put these stories together. At first, the caretaker
reported that Joji had changed the locks without authorization because
he was meant to tell the caretaker when you change
the locks of one of his apartments at the Zushi
Marina the Blue Sea, and he hadn't asked permission. He
(37:10):
was also seen buying cement and a sort of hoe
or a shovel by somebody else. Another woman reported that
she'd seen a man matching Joji's description walking down a
beach with a tall, thin, blonde woman, and the blonde
woman didn't look very happy. They didn't look as though
if they were a couple, and Lucy was walking behind him.
(37:32):
And so all these stories put together led the police
to get more evidence against him.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So how did they end up linking him to Lucy,
did it take finding her body, which they did eventually.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
They found her body eventually in the caves which they
had searched before. And then they went back when all
these stories started to come in and they found Lucy's
head entombed in this cave that I've been to, which
is really sort of bleak place down by the sea,
which is where he'd buried her.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
And he'd he dismembered her.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It was hod Yes, he dismembered her. They also found
blonde hairs which they matched with DNA from Jane Blackman
and other members of the family, which couldn't prove conclusively
that it was Lucy's but very close. So they knew
then that he dismembered her body. They knew that she'd
been to the flat because they found a photo negative
(38:35):
which showed Lucy by looking out to see from the
window in his apartment in Zushi Marina, not not at
the Blue Sea apartment. So he'd obviously taken her from
the Zushi Marina to the Blue Sea apartment where he
must have dismembered her. So they had all this evidence,
but what they didn't have was a tape of Lucy,
(38:57):
and we don't know what happened to the tape. He
must have made a tape of Lucy, but we don't know.
He probably destroyed that because that was never found. So
they couldn't get him in the trial, which took six years.
But they couldn't get They couldn't convict him of Lucy's murder.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Only that he'd dismembered her, only that he dismembered her.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
But what they could the reason they could convict him
of Creta's murder was all down to the liver biopsy
because Robert Finnegan, her fiance, a former Creta's former fiance,
remembered the liver biopsy, and the liver biopsy was found
and looked at, and when it was analyzed it showed chloroform,
(39:43):
So that proved conclusively. They'd got the tape, they've got
Creta's name, and now they've got the liver biopsy, which
proved that he'd given her chloroform.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
It seems that he didn't mean to kill these women.
That he's motive is sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
He didn't in that sense. He wasn't a serial killer.
But it was just so gruesome and awful was the
fact that he couldn't have sex with them unless they
were unconscious, so he had find a means to render
them unconscious. It was chloroform that kills Creator because he
gave her too much.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Do we know what killed Lucy? Would it have been
chloroform as well?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Probably we don't know what he gave her.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Because then I guess to jump from you know, he's
sexually assaulting these people, but then to do what he
did to Lucy's body, like he is just a.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Oh exactly, like you think, no, who could do that?
Who could do that?
Speaker 1 (40:36):
We touched on the judicial system in Japan in that
the trial took six years, and that's not like here
in Australia. You might wait in prison for three years
and then finally go to trial, which might be a
few months. But this was him in court numerous times
over six seven years. That is a long drawn out
(40:59):
process and.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
It's not unusual. The longest trial I think was twelve years.
Well somebody, and the assumption is you're guilty, so it's
just all question of repeated, repeated questioning until you admit
your bills. But Joji will never come out. I mean
the Japanese police have said to me, he'll never come
(41:21):
out of prison. He got a life sentence, but which
I know in this country doesn't necessarily mean life at all.
But they said he will never come out of prison.
They would always find a reason to keep in there.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And what was Joji like in court? Because he took
to the stand quite a bit. He had quite a
bit to say that was very damaging to the families.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
It was, it was all bizarre. He said that all
the girls had had sex with him willingly, that they
were all on drugs, they were all, you know, drug
addal prostitutes who were just having sex for money, and
that it was consenting, and that said terrible things about
all of them.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
An interesting kind of fact I read in your book
was that going to his trial became fashionable.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yes, yes, that's right, because it was the big story
at the time, and even over here the papers kept
leaving it and picking it up again. You know, on
a dull news day it would be like, oh, well,
what's happening in Japan with Jojiobara because they knew the
trial was taking so long.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
But Japanese couples were like going on dates and sitting
in the courtroom bizarre.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Which is again very bizarre. To ask, isn't it? It's gruesome.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
So in April two thousand and seven, he was given
life in prison, as you've said, for Kreta's death and
eight charges of rape.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
But he was.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Actually acquitted of Lucy's murder in that instance, he was.
That must have been so shocking for Tim and the
rest of the family.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
It was, it was, and the Ridgeways were equally upset
because obviously they'd bonded over losing two daughters, and the
Ridgeways were equally upset that he wore wasn't although they
were satisfied that he was found guilty of Creator's murder,
that Lucy wasn't. It was a terrible thing for the family.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
But that was rectified the following year.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
It was. It was because they it's more or less
we have a phrase for it here. I'm just trying
to think what the phrase is. But it's like beyond
reasonable doubt that the fact they knew Lucy was in
the flat, they found her hair, he dismembered the body,
so the assumption was that he had somehow caused her death.
(43:47):
He wasn't ever convicted of Lucy's murder as such, but
of causing her death and disposing the body.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Another thing I wanted to touch on was the payments
that both of the dads actually kind of took or
thought about taking, which was it's a kind of a
thing that happens in the Japanese system. Can you explain
what that was.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
It's sort of they feel that they've offended you. It's
like your honor has been damaged by the death of
a family member, and so it's quite common to pay.
I mean, to ask him, it seems like compensation, and
that was why the families didn't want to take it,
particularly the mothers. But Tim explained it to me. I mean,
(44:32):
it calls a terrible falling out in their family. But
Tim explained to me that he'd had to leave his
job and he stopped work the whole time he was
searching for Lucy, and he needed money as well to
continue the search for Lucy. So it had cost him
personally an awful lot of money. And he said he
(44:52):
felt that if he accepted this money on behalf of
his children, he could give it to the family and
that it would help him to support Rupert and Sophie
lose his brother and sister.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
But that money was coming from Joji or Jogi's defense team.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yes, it's it's a difficult one, isn't it. And Jane
was terribly upset Lucy's mother and.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
The courts kind of no, this is happening. It's a
regular part of the kind of process and it doesn't
affect the kind of outcome. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
That's correct? But Sam said to me that I think
when her father, I think her father did accept some
money in the end, and they said they would only
do it on condition that it didn't mean it didn't
absolve Jojio Bar of any guilt for Kreta's death.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Lucy Blackman's name was everywhere. Obviously, her family, her dad
did so much to get her story out there, the
search out there. Her face is very familiar, but Coreta
she wasn't as familiar. And many people today who might
remember Lucy's story might not remember her story. Why do
(46:08):
you think that is?
Speaker 2 (46:09):
I think because I just didn't receive so much publicity.
And I don't really know why. I mean, other than
the fact that Tim went to Australia and it got
the world's press. But I don't know why. I suppose
because with Lucy was she was missing and that involved
(46:29):
the press, you know, where is she? Where is she?
Where is she? Whereas with Coretakreta had supposedly died in
hospital and disappeared, and then you know, she was never
missing for any period. She went out on the date
with Joji Barr and then she was in hospital and
then she died. So I think the story just didn't
(46:50):
get picked up. And certainly, you know, as I said,
it just wasn't covered here at all. I didn't know
until Mary Claire asked me to go out and cover
the story about Kreta Ridgeway. And it was such a tragic,
tragic story, and she was such a lovely girl, you know,
I feel it it's terrible that she should be gotten
(47:10):
in this way out and by her family.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Did the depravity of what Joji did to not just
Lucy into Karata, but all of these women, did it
help to kind of clean up Japan's sex industry a bit,
or at least kind of discourage women from joining certain
parts of the industry.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
It did, It did very much. So I think that
after Lucy's death they went into Rapongie and everything was
cleaned up massively, and people I know have been there
since then said it's changed totally today and that you
have to have there's very strict rules about being a hostess,
(47:52):
and you can't go off and not say who you're with,
and they keep a track of the men that are
coming into the bars. And also I think the whole
hostess culture declined after Lucy, you know, because people no
longer felt that it was safe.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
What did you take away from Dick diving into this story?
Because you went to Japan, you went to these bars,
you saw everything, You visited all of the houses that
Joji was at. It's such a complex case and also
such a different criminal system to what you're used to
in the UK or what we're used to do in Australia.
What stays with you from doing this story?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
I think just how different Japanese culture is still to
us really, and that you know, to Joji was such
a monster, He was such a to a degree that
we find very different fathom in a way that we
could understand some British murders. I think this is still
(48:48):
so bizarre to us. The whole thing is a bizarre story.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I did watch a Netflix documentary about Lucy's story in particular,
and the Japanese investigators. This is a story that's really
stayed with them as well, and they've visited Lucy's family.
I'm not sure about creators, but it has been something
that has had a really big effect on not just
the families, but also the police and everyone else that
(49:15):
worked on it.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Oh, very much so. And what really touched me when
I went out to the beach where they found Las's
body was there a jar. It's a nest cafe jar
or something, an empty coffee jar, and every day Japanese
people put fresh flowers there, and I believe that's still
the case. I have a friend Barbara, who still lives
(49:38):
in Tokyo, and she says it's still the case today
that Japanese people feel that Tokyo and Japan should have
been somewhere safe that people families could send their daughters to,
and they feel it very deeply.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Thanks to Claire for helping us to tell this story.
True Crime Conversations is a Mum of mea podcast hosted
and produced by me Jemma Buss and Talie Blackman, with
audio design by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation
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