It Took Police Seven Months To Find Lucie Blackman In Japan
Warning: Discussions of sexual assault and disturbing crimes ahead.
In 2000, 21-year-old Lucie Blackman decided to take a gap year, moving to Tokyo from her home in the United Kingdom. She wanted to live and work in the exciting, metropolitan, Japanese city with a friend. But less than a month after her move, she went missing. It took seven months before her friends and family had any answers about her disappearance.
Now, a Netflix true crime documentary, Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case, details the events leading up to Lucie’s disappearance, as well as the investigation that took place afterwards as people tried to figure out what happened to her. The doc features lots of interviews with the Japanese detectives who worked on the case, journalists, and Lucie’s father, Tim Blackman.
The series is one of the most-watched on Netflix right now and, if you’re checking it out, it’s understandable to have questions about whether Lucie was ever found. Here’s what you need to know:
Who is Lucie Blackman?
Lucie was a 21-year-old flight attendant for British Airways. She and a friend, Louise Phillips, decided to move to Tokyo for a year to have an adventure. She quit working for the airline soon after arriving in Tokyo, and took a hostess job at a high-end club in the city called Casablanca, instead.
Lucie went missing less than a month after her arrival. After leaving for a date with a client named Joji Obara, she was never heard from again. Her roommate, Louise, received a call the next day from someone saying Lucie had joined a cult, per The Independent. She got in touch with Lucie's family, and they quickly made their way to Tokyo to figure out what happened to their daughter.
What happened to her?
After Lucie’s disappearance, her family flew to Japan to try to figure out what had happened to their daughter.
Lucie’s dad explains in the documentary that he realized things were off when his daughter didn’t return his calls.
“I was immediately thinking, well, there must be some rational explanation, some reason why she's not been able to get in touch,” he says. “There were three or four more calls and I knew that something had gone wrong. That feeling of complete blind panic just crashes in on you.”
Was Lucie Blackman ever found?
Lucie was never found alive. Despite more than 100 officers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police working on the case, it took seven months to find Lucie’s body.
On February 9, 2001, in a seafront cave a few yards away from a man named Joji Obara’s home, authorities found her dismembered body, per The Mirror. She had been cut into eight pieces and her head was encased in concrete. The decomposition on her body made it difficult to find any helpful evidence as to what had happened.
Two months later, the police arrested Obara and charged him with Lucie's abduction, rape, and the disposal of her body. At the time, he was also charged with the death an Australian woman in 1992 and eight other rapes.
Who is Joji Obara?
Joji Obara was a millionaire property developer from Tokyo. He was arrested in 2001 in connection to Lucie's disappearance, and in 2002, he went on trial for the alleged drugging, rape, and disposal of Lucie's body, the Daily Mail and The Independent say. By 2007, Obara was acquitted of all charges tied to Lucie's death due to a lack of evidence, per the BBC. (Lucie’s body was badly decomposed at the time it was discovered.)
While the judge found Obara not guilty on charges relating to Lucie, he did sentence Obara to life in prison for raping and killing an Australian nightclub hostess named Carita Ridgway in 1992, and for committing eight other rapes.
Lucie's family appealed the judge's decision, and in 2008, Obara was found guilty of abducting Lucie. And, The Independent explains that while the court couldn't find enough evidence to convict Obara of murder, it found that he he had mutilated Lucie’s body.
Where is Obara now?
Obara is serving a life sentence for Lucie's abduction and mutilation, as well as the death of Carita Ridgway, per the Daily Mail.
You can learn more about Lucie's tragic story in the documentary, which is streaming now on Netflix.
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