Gruesome Discovery Ends Mystery

Feb. 10, 2001 -- A gruesome discovery has ended the mystery of what happened to Lucie Blackman, a young British woman who disappeared in Tokyo months ago, Japanese police said today.

Authorities confirmed parts of a woman's body — including a severed head, torso and hands — found Friday encased in concrete belonged to Blackman, who went missing on July 1.

Blackman, a 22-year-old former airline stewardess, had been working as a bar hostess in Tokyo's trendy Roppongi entertainment district.

"We have determined the identity of the body, and it is an unfortunate outcome for the parents and family of Lucie-san,"Akira Hiromitsu, head of the first investigative section of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department, told a news conference. Authorities used dental records to confirm their findings.

He said coroners were still investigating the cause of death.

Public attention surrounding the case has been intense, in part because crimes involving Western women are very rare in Japan, which made the case even more absorbing for the public. Posters of Blackman are posted throughout the district where she disappeared.

The possible involvement of Joji Obara, 48, a wealthy Tokyo property developer, added to the media frenzy.

A High-Profile Suspect, a Rare Crime

Tokyo police said today they would charge Obara with abandoning Blackman's corpse.

Blackman's remains were found in a 20-inch deep pit about 750 feet from an apartment owned by Obara.

Japanese police had already revealed there were links with Obara, who has been arrested on charges of raping several foreign and Japanese women.

Obara has denied any involvement in Blackman's disappearance although he has admitted having drinks with her at the bar where she worked.

At a trial for allegedly raping two foreign women last month, prosecutors told a Japanese court they found videos of Obara having sex with foreign women. Prosecutors accused him of lacing the women's drinks with pills that temporarily knocked them out.

Obara is pleading not guilty and has said the women had consensual sex with him.

The Japanese Times had earlier reported that hair samples found in Obara's apartment in Zushi, a seaside town, appeared to be linked with samples of Blackman's hair provided by her family.

A Family’s Trauma

For the Blackmans, the identification brings some closure to an ordeal that began the day the blonde Briton disappeared during a day-trip to the Chiba coast east of Tokyo with an unidentified man more than seven months ago.

But Blackman's father suspects Obara is responsible for his daughter's disappearance.

"It's been an extremely traumatic time for us particularly when this man was originally arrested. We started to fear the worst at that stage," Tim Blackman told the BBC earlier.

"I think we started to feel that Lucie had run into an awful situation and that potentially what he had administered to her could have been fatal."

The last the world heard of Blackman was on June 30 when she called a friend saying she was going on a day trip to the seaside with a customer.

Blackman, from Kent, England, was only 21 when she entered Japan as a tourist in early May.

Since her disappearance, her father has been a frequent visitor to Japan, making emotional appeals for help from the Japanese public.

Her family has put up a $15,000 reward for information leading to her discovery, and distributed more than 30,000 leaflets with her photograph around Tokyo.

They have also established a hotline in Tokyo and hired British and Japanese private investigators to help with the search.

Upon hearing the positive identification of the remains today, the Blackman family said it was a "very sad and traumatic time" in a statement released to the BBC.

In London, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook also offered his condolences. "Her father, Tim … and the wholefamily, are much in my thoughts," he said in a statement. "I have greatly admired their courage as they have sought news of Lucie. The task now must be to bring her killer to justice."