Obara Found Guilty Of Lucie Blackman Murder

[Mulboyne]

[Big Booger]

[Behan]

Would he be kept in jail/prison while waiting on an appeal decision? I hope so.

[Mulboyne]

Would he be kept in jail/prison while waiting on an appeal decision? I hope so.

Why do you think he might be let out?

[Behan]

Sorry, dumb question I suppose. You are kept in prison while appealing a guilty verdict, right?
But had he been in prison during the trial he just lost?

[Catoneinutica]

From Mulboyne's link above:

"Mr Blackman, who is mid-Atlantic taking part in a yacht race, expressed stunned amazement on being told the news by The Times."

The Obara Cup?

-catone
-cue the music for Take's appearance to remind us of a certain detail about Obara...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Although I'm glad to hear it in this guy's case, I don't like Japanese double jeopardy justice.

[Mulboyne]

Sorry, dumb question I suppose. You are kept in prison while appealing a guilty verdict, right?
But had he been in prison during the trial he just lost?

No, not a dumb question. I was wondering of you had read something earlier to make you ask the question. I think Horie may still be out on bail pending his final appeal so it does happen. However, I don't think Obara was ever granted bail because of the seriousness of the charges against him. Also, in this recent court proceeding, Obara was appealing his sentence rather than his conviction so there would not have been grounds for letting him remain at large even if he had originally been on bail. The other part of this process was the prosecutor's appeal which has got all the attention because the court reversed the lower court's opinion in the Blackman case. It will be interesting to see whether Obara chooses to appeal this new conviction or whether he'll accept it and focus an appeal on the sentence.

[Sentakki Fried Chicken]

Obara was jailed throughout his appeal after being convicted (for life, if my memory serves me correctly) over a series of other crimes, though the District Court did not find him guilty of Blackman's murder. As the terms are served concurrently, the guilty ruling won't affect his sentence (unless he is given a harsher penalty).

[Mulboyne]

The original Times headline of "Japanese rapist found guilty of killing Lucie Blackman" is wrong. As is this thread title which was based on that report. Here's the Asahi:

Overturning a lower court ruling, the Tokyo High Court on Tuesday found businessman Joji Obara guilty of dismembering and dumping the body of Briton Lucie Blackman. But it did not hold him responsible for her death.

The Times has changed its headline and story associated with the link but that seems like a fairly fundamental error. It's not clear what understanding the family had of the verdict at the time. Effectively, the court has decided that the circumstantial evidence is sufficient to show that Obara was responsible for getting rid of the body but they cannot say for certain that he caused her death. The problem they have, of course, is that the body was in no state for a post mortem so they couldn't conduct the kind of tests which pointed to his guilt in the Ridgway case.

[Tengu Kid]

The original Times headline of "Japanese rapist found guilty of killing Lucie Blackman" is wrong. As is this thread title which was based on that report. Here's the Asahi:

The Times has changed its headline and story associated with the link but that seems like a fairly fundamental error. It's not clear what understanding the family had of the verdict at the time. Effectively, the court has decided that the circumstantial evidence is sufficient to show that Obara was responsible for getting rid of the body but they cannot say for certain that he caused her death. The problem they have, of course, is that the body was in no state for a post mortem so they couldn't conduct the kind of tests which pointed to his guilt in the Ridgway case.

I think this might also be the way they phrase things in the Japanese courts. Like the cock that killed the Nova teacher (suddenly got mental block and cant remember his name) is wanted for `abandoning a body` not for `murder`. However this is what all suspected murderers are wanted for.

[IkemenTommy]

I think this might also be the way they phrase things in the Japanese courts. Like the cock that killed the Nova teacher (suddenly got mental block and cant remember his name) is wanted for `abandoning a body` not for `murder`. However this is what all suspected murderers are wanted for.

Things may change when they start having the public jury system soon.

[BigInJapan]

[GomiGirl]

After a very long 10 years I hope this helps the Blackman family with some closure... not that this is any consolation for their loss.

I remember this case from my earliest days in Tokyo as I lived just down the road from her gaijin house.

[eddie]

does the convicted get to live - rather than get a death sentence - due to the fact he's not convicted of the murder itself?

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

does the convicted get to live - rather than get a death sentence - due to the fact he's not convicted of the murder itself?

He didn't get the death sentence because prosecutors never sought it in his case. Conventionally, prosecutors will seek the death sentence against those accused of killing at least three victims. There are exceptions, but I think Obara was probably saved by the dearth of material evidence pinpointing him to the deaths of so many people. Japanese courts were once notorious for convicting largely on circumstantial evidence, but they've probably improved a little over the past decade or so.
Personally, I think it's better Obara stays behind bars in a Japanese prison for the rest of his life...having to live with himself in one of this cuntry's penal institutions is a far crueler punishment than allowing him to end it all in a matter of seconds.

[IparryU]

Personally, I think it's better Obara stays behind bars in a Japanese prison for the rest of his life...having to live with himself in one of this cuntry's penal institutions is a far crueler punishment than allowing him to end it all in a matter of seconds.

I agree with this one.

Dont kill them and let them off the hook that easy... Let them suffer or bleed out at least.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Let them suffer or bleed out at least.

I'd be with you, too, if that's what they did with them...but it's over in seconds and relatively painless.
I like the idea of leaving them in prison and driving them insane like they did with that cunt Asahara.

[BigInJapan]

I like the idea of leaving them in prison and driving them insane like they did with that cunt Asahara.

I think it's safe to say that the Aum cult guru was already quite a few bricks short of a load before going behind bars...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I think it's safe to say that the Aum cult guru was already quite a few bricks short of a load before going behind bars...

Absolutely. But I still think driving criminals insane would be a much better punishment than simply executing them...

[IparryU]

Absolutely. But I still think driving criminals insane would be a much better punishment than simply executing them...

yes, unless they start to feel sorry for the son of a bitch, rehab him, then release him.

remember that pedo in the US that got rehabed, than the month he was out he raped and killed another girl? he got his balls cut off in prison with a coke can...

now that is punishment.

[Greji]

Absolutely. But I still think driving criminals insane would be a much better punishment than simply executing them...

Gotta argue with you on this one Hair. I say hang the motherfucker first then drive him insane.

[eddie]

for someone like this, i think the asahara treatment's great.

'warden has something to tell you...in 10 days'

ten days later...

'you are gonna die...

for this great floor-spit-hair nabe...enjoy. by the way, you may or may not be killed on any given day'.

[AML]

If he did get out we should all gang rape him with kendo sticks, then dismember him, and leave him lying in a pile somewhere very public.

[IparryU]

greji and aml both have great ideas

[Mulboyne]

People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman

Lloyd Parry is a Japan correspondent for the Times.

[Catoneinutica]

People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman

Lloyd Parry is a Japan correspondent for the Times.

Thanks for the tip! Already pre-ordered my copy. I'd have expected Parry would've chosen Ichihashi as his subject instead of Obara, but Obara really is the examplar of gaijin-girl-mickey-slipping evil that animated Ichihashi, and he moreover enjoyed a decades-long career that undoubtedly resulted in more deaths than those of Carita Ridgeway and Lucie Blackman. He's also a cynosure of the queasy subject of zainichi Koreans, something I imagine Parry will dig into in his book.

[Catoneinutica]

"People Who Eat Darkness": some quick impressions...

-I won't damn it with faint praise and say it's better than a previous Blackman/Ridgeway/Hawker tome I picked up at Kinokuniya. It's quite good, and almost, but not quite, rises to the level of a true crime classic: alas, a few years down the road I'll probably be deaccessioning it from my lumbering shelves, along with previous cast-offs like "Cartels of the Mind" and "Shutting Out the Sun".

-Obara's original name was Seisho Kin, but the Kin family also went by the name Hoshiyama "when it suited them." Parry notes that Hoshiyama is a name that Japanese would immediately recognize as being a zainichi-chosenjin cover name. Is there a list of these nihonjin-manque names out there? My wife tells me Yasuda is frequently used as a surrogate for Anh, but that's the only other one I know.

-Obara is so paranoid about having his photo taken that he looked down when they were taking his mug shot (and, astonishingly, the cops let him get away with it). Moreover, during court sessions, he'd turn away from the sketch artists so that all they could get was the back of his head.

-His Zushi love pad had hooks on the walls and ceiling. Gals, if a guy takes you to his place and there are hooks everywhere, don't accept his claim that there's an innocent explanation for it.

-When Parry went to Kitabatake, the "affluent" (for Osaka, I guess) suburb where Kimiko Kin, Obara's mom, still resides, she refused to see him, naturally. Then Parry saw a disheveled-looking guy come running out of the place. Parry chased him, and when he caught up with him, introduced himself. The guy was Eisho Kin, Obara's youngest brother (there are four Kin/Hoshiyama boys). Eisho was extremely agitated and said,

"You are stupid! It's absurd. You must have bigger issues to pick up than this minor thing. What about global warming?"

He also threatened Parry twice: "Never come back. Never come close to me. If you come back, I'll take certain measures."

More later...

[Catoneinutica]

-Also, if you think you might've annoyed someone in Japan, be sure to always stand well back from train and subway platforms.

[Mike Oxlong]

Our friend Jake did a review...

...One of the ironies of the case was that some of the key sources who helped the police track down Obara were yakuza affiliates of a Tokyo-based crime group. They are not generally good Samaritans but there are three things that the group bans and that are cause for immediate expulsion: theft, robbery and rape. Obara was scum even in their eyes. When Lucie's body was found, one member of the group contacted me with a message: 'If Obara doesn't get the death penalty, we could administer it. Prisons are full of accidents. Let Mr Blackman know. If that's what he wants, we'll see that justice is done.'...