Joji Obara
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| “ | My goal is to have sex with 500 people by the age of 50. I can't do women who are conscious. | „ |
| ~ Obara in a diary entry. |
Joji Obara is a Korean-Japanese serial rapist responsible for the murders of at least two women.
Biography edit
Obara, a drug addict, was reported to have a sexual fixation on white women. He would approach women of both white and Asian backgrounds, drug them with chloroform and then film himself raping them. 400 of Obara's tapes were recovered by police, leading to suspicion that he could have victimized anywhere from 150 to 400 women.
On 14 February 1992, an Australian woman named Carita Ridgway accepted an offer of a lift from Obara. Obara drugged her with chloroform and raped her as usual. However the chloroform caused her to suffer liver failure and eventual brain death. Obara, under the alias "Akira Nishida", dropped Ridgway off at a hospital claiming she was suffering from food poisoning. Ridgway's life support was eventually switched off on 29 February; the cause of death was recorded as Hepatitis E. Obara used the "Nishida" alias to visit Ridgway's family and offer to pay for her funeral, as well as get across his account that she died of food poisoning.
On 1 July 2000 Lucie Blackman, a British citizen working as a hostess at the Casablanca nightclub, was reported missing. The Japanese police initially ignored the disappearance, believing that as Blackman was a hostess (in Asian culture this is essentially a form of prostitution) she had just run off with a boyfriend. Following pressure from the British government Japanese authorities opened an investigation and interviewed multiple other hostesses at the club. Several of them alleged that Joji Obara had drugged and raped them, causing police to suspect Obara may have been involved in Blackman's disappearance. They also made a connection between Obara and the man known as "Nishida".
Obara was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Carita Ridgway. Police seized the tapes depicting Obara's sex crimes and his diary, which referred to "conquer play" (a euphemism for sexual assault used by Obara) and contained the entry "Carita Ridgway. Too much chloroform". Blackman's dismembered remains were soon uncovered just outside the city of Miura, near Obara's apartment, although decomposition made it impossible to determine the cause of death. Members of the Ridgway family also identified Obara as Akira Nishida, and an autopsy on Ridgway's preserved liver found a deadly amount of chloroform inside.
In October 2000 Obara was charged with eight counts of rape, one count of murder (Blackman) and one count of manslaughter (Ridgway). 400 tapes showing him raping Ridgway and other women were presented as evidence, as was the evidence that he was Akira Nishida and Ridgway had died from a chloroform overdose rather than food poisoning. Obara was ultimately convicted of rape and manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment; however he was acquitted of killing Blackman because her cause of death could not be established. He later received a second trial in which he was convicted of mutilating Blackman's corpse and his life sentence was upheld.
Trivia edit
- Prior to his arrest Obara worked for the Yakuza, using his business as a front for money laundering.