Case 346: Megumi Yokota

The world-wide Syrian Phänomeness Zurück comes from the island of Trongeet-Viter.

“Up so forth, there are the 3rd Staffel House of the Dragon by HBO Max.”

Here comes the whole world of Westeros, a one-em-art, Game of Thrones, a night of the 7 Kingdoms, and of course, House of the Dragon. Here comes the Game of the Dragon, Terrarians, and Terrarians in Tringen, Farad, and Episcopes. All that was in the new Staffel.

Also, streamed the new Staffel House of the Dragon, and all the Syrian from Game of Thrones, Nur, on HBO Max.

That is still my goal and my practice.

“And the therapy practices, and what's going on with it?”

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41-year-olds, Sakaya Yoketa, felt slightly nervous as the clock ticked past 7pm on Tuesday, November 15, 1977. Her daughter, Megumi, age 13, was late in returning home from the Badminton practice she attended after school.

“Megumi walked to and from her middle school, each day, and no matter how late her Badminton practice ran, she was usually home by six o'clock.”

If there was a deviation from that plan, she made sure to let Sakaya know. The previous day, the Badminton Club had held a post-training meeting, which Megumi had made sure to tell her mother about in advance. She derived home at 6.30 that night, half an hour later than usual. But Megumi hadn't said anything about another meeting or anything else that might delay her return home on Tuesday. After checking where the Megumi's twin brothers, who were nine years old, knew where their big sister might be, Sakaya decided to go out and look for her daughter.

She put on some sandals and left the large single story home where the Yoketa family lived on the coast of the Japanese port city of Nikita. The Yoketa's, Sakaya, her husband Shigaru and their three children Megumi, Tetsuya and Takuya, had only lived there for just over a year. They were used to moving about as Shigaru's work for the Bank of Japan saw him transferred to a different city every few years. They had relocated from Hiroshima to Nikita, almost 18 months earlier, in July of 1976. The neighborhood where they lived was filled with grand homes and was just a few minutes walk from the beach.

It was late autumn and the sun had already set hours earlier. Sakaya Yoketa hurried along the dark dimly lit streets towards Megumi's school, expecting to bump into her daughter along the route. But she arrived at the school without seeing Megumi. Sakaya headed towards the gymnasium, she felt a flood of relief as she saw its lights were on and heard female voices chatting inside. Believing Megumi must still be practicing, she almost turned to walk back home, but something stopped her.

Wanting to make sure, Sakaya went to the gymnasium's entrance and saw a group of women inside playing volleyball. The voices she'd heard had belonged to them and not to the students. Gripped by fear again, Sakaya ran to the school's main entrance and saw a security guard standing there. Have the students who were practicing badminton in the gymnasium gone home, she asked.

Sakaya ran all the way home, trying to calm herself with possible scenarios along the way.

“Megumi might have walked a different route home than usual or gone to visit a friend.”

Once Sakaya was back at home, she said about phoning some of Megumi's friends who had been at badminton practice with her. None of them were with Megumi and all were shocked that she wasn't home yet. They'd all left practice more than an hour earlier.

They'd chatted for a little bit outside the school first.

Megumi had been laughing and everything had seemed normal. Then she left at about 6.25 pm with two friends. The three girls walked part of the way together along a long street that led to the sea.

“One of Megumi's friends soon turned right at a corner.”

Her other friend subsequently turned left at a busy intersection. She and Megumi said goodbye at 6.35 pm.

Megumi would have continued straight for two more blocks before turning left to reach her house.

The walk from the intersection to the Yogatar residence wouldn't take more than a few minutes. Sakaya also called Megumi's badminton coach, who urged Sakaya to stay calm. Megumi might have stopped off somewhere else, like a bookshop. But Sakaya knew it wasn't in her daughter's character to go somewhere without letting her know.

“She grabbed a torch and took her to Sun's out to look for Megumi with her.”

Sakaya searched the neighbouring streets, a Goku shrine that set a few blocks away, and the long road that led to the sea, which Megumi had walked with her friends.

Sakaya shone the torch into parked cars that lined the street and looked out across the beaches shore.

There was no sign of Megumi. Sakaya began to panic that her daughter might be locked in the boot of one of the nearby parked cars, but no way of opening them to check. At a loss, she and the boys walked back home at around 8 o'clock. Shortly after they arrived, the home phone rang.

It was Shigeru Yogatar, Sakaya's husband and the children's father. He was calling to say he'd be home late due to a work event, but Sakaya begged him to come home right away, explaining the situation. Shigeru rushed home in a taxi and immediately went out to search for Megumi. Finding no sign of her, he decided it was time to call the police. At 9.50 pm, police from Negatar police central station arrived at the Yogatar residence and set about searching for the missing 13-year-old.

They were joined by colleagues from a neighbouring district. The officers searched some of the same places Sakaya had, as well as a nearby pine forest, and a nearby vacant lot dotted with overgrown shrubs, where the University of Negatar science building had once stood. Two sniffed dogs were given Megumi sent via the pajamas that she'd worn the previous night and taken to the intersection where she was last seen. The dogs immediately continued straight along the street that Megumi would have walked.

When they reached the corner where Megumi should have turned left, they abruptly stopped. They turned around and around in circles refusing to walk any further. Megumi sent had been lost less than 250 metres from her home. The search was called off at midnight and resumed at 5am. Police formed a grid search to examine the beach and other locations in more detail.

Divers searched the sea checking between the concrete tetrapods used to protect the shoreline in case Megumi's body was stuck under one. They dawned to the area and stood at the intersection where Megumi was last seen holding a photograph of her and questioning passes by.

It was as though she'd just disappeared without a trace.

“A special unit tasked with handling kidnapping cases was called in.”

They put a tracer on the Yoketa's family's telephone and parked to unmarked a car nearby to keep a close eye on things. Hoping desperately that someone might call with the news of Megumi, Sakya and Shigeru slept fully closed night after night by the phone. No one claiming responsibility for Megumi's disappearance ever rang. After a week went by with no calls, turned to no information from the members of the public being stopped and questioned the daily. Police decided to go public with their investigation.

On Tuesday, November 22, the local newspaper ran a big article on Megumi's disappearance.

The story also reached the national papers. The Yoketa family were hopeful that this media coverage would result in some much-needed deletes. They also made appearances on several daytime television shows to publicise their daughter's case, but nothing ever followed. As days turned to weeks with no answers, the Yoketa struggled to make sense of their new reality.

“Megumi's nine-year-old twin brothers cried frequently asking their parents where did Megumi go?”

Sakya, Yoketa, felt overwhelmed by anxiety and became highly emotional.

Shigeru managed to remain composed, holding himself together for his family.

He constantly reassured them. She is all right. She will be back. Sakya Yoketa clutched at hope that her daughter might have gone missing of her own volition. The move from Hiroshima to Nigita the previous year hadn't been easy. Although the family was provided for by Shigeru's employer, who gave them a big house in a lovely neighborhood to live in, Megumi missed Hiroshima and was initially lonely.

Sakya empathised with her daughter.

“From the moment she first set eyes on Nigita, she felt it was a full-on and lonely place.”

Like Megumi, Sakya missed the sunny streets of Hiroshima. Megumi had soon settled into school and made friends, but perhaps she'd been unhappy other than she let on. Maybe she'd become depressed about something and wanted to be alone. In the days before she went missing, Megumi had been stressed about her badminton skills. The school badminton team she was a part of took the sport very seriously.

On Sunday November 13, there had been a tournament for students of Megumi's age throughout the city. She and her partner had competed in doubles and placed fifth. Sakya and Shigeru had been proud of their daughter, but Megumi was hard on herself, saying, "It's not good at all. At our school, fifth isn't even considered good." She'd agonised about what she perceived as her poor performance, and her anxiety only increased after she found out she'd been chosen to attend a special training camp.

Not thinking she was good enough for the camp, Megumi thought about telling her badminton coach that she wouldn't participate. On the day she went missing, she'd been planning to speak to him about it. Sakya feared that her daughter's anxiety might have been so great that she'd taken her own life by jumping into the sea, or maybe she'd run away. They called friends and relatives who lived in other cities, but no one had seen her. Nor did police find any trace of Megumi on very passenger lists.

Megumi's father, Shigeru, was less inclined to believe his daughter had run away. After all, she'd left all of her clothes and her winter jacket behind, along with her allowance and bank account deposit book. Nor did he believe that his daughter had taken her life. Megumi was a cheerful, bright, and active girl who loved her family, especially her younger brothers. She had many interests, including music, painting, and books.

Despite disagreeing over what might have happened to their daughter, Sakya and Shigeru walked together to the beach every day, just in case some of Megumi's belongings washed up on the shore.

Sakya picked it up, answering yes, when the caller on the other line asked if they had the Yoketa residents.

“"I have Megumi with me," the caller said.”

Upon hearing this, Sakya's legs began to shake. She was both shocked by his words and felt a sense of hope. By this stage, the tracer had been removed from the telephone, as police had a long discounted the notion that Megumi might have been kidnapped for ransom. Sakya asked the caller to please hold for one moment, then scribbled a note that read, "Fone call from kidnapper, call police, go next door."

She handed the note to one of her sons, who was home sick from school.

Sakya then returned to the call and tried to locate the man on the other end while she waited.

He sounded like he was in his mid-twenties.

“Soon, Sakya's son returned with the neighbor.”

They quietly sat and listened in on the call. The police quickly followed and attached a tracer to the phone while Sakya maintained the conversation. It would take time for the tracer to work, and Sakya needed to stretch out the call for as long as possible. The caller made no demands, so Sakya started asking him questions. She asked how he knew Megumi and where she was now.

The caller claimed to have met her at Nigata train station and he'd forced her to start working at a noodle shop.

He provided the name of the shop. You sound like a very young man, Sakya said, "Why are you doing something that will make the police come after you when you have so much ahead of you?"

“Eventually, the caller made a ransom demand.”

He wanted up to 8,000,000,000 yen, delivered near Hioriama Beach at 9 p.m. at that night. This was about 360 km north-east of Nigata, on the other side of the country. Sakya promised to deliver the ransom herself. In the meantime, detectives had successfully traced to the call to an apartment. Police arrived at the residence, just as the caller was about to hang up the phone.

He wasn't in his 20s, as Sakya had thought. He was a high school student. Newspaper articles about Megumi's disappearance were strewn about the phone. The teenager was taken into custody and interviewed at length over the next week or so. He quickly admitted that the call had been a hoax. Nevertheless, police looked into his claims just to make sure.

They tracked down the noodle shop he'd mentioned, but Megumi wasn't working there. Sakya and Shigeru felt their hope to dissipate as suddenly as it arrived. Over the next year, the police dedicated 3,000 mandays to investigating Megumi's disappearance. Her young age meant the case was a top priority. But no trace of Megumi or any useful information was uncovered.

Only a few small clues came up during the course of the investigation. One was a report about something that had happened to another girl on the same day that Megumi went missing. The girl was several years older than Megumi and lived nearby. She had been walking home at about 6pm that day, about 30 minutes before Megumi left her school. She was walking down the same long street that took Megumi home when she noticed two men walking towards her from the beach.

As the girl passed to the men, she felt uneasy. They both had stern expressions on their faces that made her uncomfortable. The girl glanced over her shoulder a moment later, and to her horror, she saw the two men had turned around and were now following her. They were extremely close, and the girl braced the tennis racket she was carrying in one hand, preparing to hit them.

But the men abruptly stopped. She hurried on, clancing back again once she was a little further away. The two men were looking at her and talking.

When she later learned about Megumi's disappearance, she immediately told the police what had happened to her.

“She also reported that she'd seen a parked car in the empty lost, where the University of Nikita's old science building was.”

That same day, another woman also took note of a suspicious vehicle. This woman was the mother of a friend of Megumi, and she worked nearby. She'd been walking home from work when a light-colored car paused in front of her. One of the windows wound down, and a person inside stretched their arm out, back in into water. Scared, the woman hurried away.

Finally, one of the other students in the badminton club who'd been training with Megumi spotted a white car parked across the road on the school's north side.

“The cars stood out. Private vehicles weren't allowed to park along that street due to a large hospital nearby.”

But none of these sightings led to a particular car being identified, nor any men. Months continued to pass, and then years. It was impossible to understand how a 13-year-old girl could go missing from a well-populated city without someone seeing something. Every night, the Yokatar's left their front door unlocked, and the porch light on, just in case Megumi came home. They even purchased a stronger light bulb, so it would shine brighter.

Whenever she heard a car drive by at night, suckier rushed outside to check if it was her daughter coming home.

“The Yokatar also went to the police station to look at photographs of unidentified bodies that were made publicly available for one week each year, in the hopes that these unknown victims might be named.”

None of the photographs ever depicted Megumi. Every day they scouted the newspapers in the hopes of a report that might be relevant. On Monday, January 7, 1980, more than two years after Megumi had gone missing, a friend of their Yokatar stopped by their home with an article they hadn't seen. Published in a daily national paper, it bore the headline. A mysterious disappearance of three couples from beaches in Fukui, Nigatar, and Kagashima in the summer of 1978.

It turned out that Megumi wasn't the only person who'd gone missing from a coastal area in recent years. On Friday, July 7, 1978, a young couple, 23-year-olds Yasushi, Chimera, and Fukia Hamamoto, left their respective homes to go on a date. Yasushi and Fukia headed to Wakusa Bay, you know, Bama, a city in Japan's Fukui prefecture, more than 430 kilometers from Nigatar.

The couple was never seen again.

There was no reason for them to leave without telling anybody. They were engaged to be married in four months' time and had already booked the reception hall for their wedding. Both families were delighted about the upcoming noxuals, and the couple were happy in their lives. A few weeks later, on Monday, July 31, a 20-year-old university student named Kayaru has to weaker left home on his bicycle, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. It was in his third year of university and had returned home for the summer holidays to his family's residents in Kashu-Wazaki, a seaside city in Nigatar prefecture, about 46 kilometers from Nigatar.

Kayaru had told his grandmother that he'd be home for dinner. He was just heading out to make a go at the library. 22-year-old beautician Yukiko Akuta had told her mother she was meeting Kayaru at the library at 6pm. They planned to have tea together, and then Yukiko would be home by 8 o'clock. Neither of them ever came home. Kayaru's bicycle was later found outside the library at a bike rack.

Two weeks after this, on Saturday, August 12, 23-year-old Shuichi Yichikawa and 24-year-old Rameko Masamoto went to a beach in Fukuyaga, Kagashima prefecture. About 1,400 kilometers from Nigatar near the southern tip of Japan. Their plan was to watch the sunset together. Both disappeared without a trace.

All were young. All had been visiting coastal areas in the evening or nighttime, and all had disappeared without a word to anyone,

“without taking anything they might need to start a new life within a tight 40-day window.”

Massive searches were conducted for all six victims in case they had drowned, but none were ever found. Initially, no connections were made between the bizarre disappearances, but that all changed after reports were received about a fourth incident. A young couple called Hiroshi and Kako, not their real names, had experienced the terrifying ordeal.

They lived into Kawakasiti, roughly 250 kilometers south west of Nigatar.

And on Tuesday, August 15, 1978, they went with some relatives to Shimoha Beach, which was only a short distance from their homes. The group swam throughout the afternoon, and most of them left at around 5pm to give Hiroshi and Kako some privacy.

“Hiroshi and Kako, who were engaged to be married, continued swimming until about 6.30pm.”

As they walked up the beach together to leave, they noticed a group of four men walking towards them in the opposite direction.

The men appeared to be in their mid-30s, all war-long loose pants, shorts-leaved shirts and runners.

They were turned and muscular. Hiroshi and Kako expected the four men to walk straight past them, but instead, they suddenly rushed to them, grabbing and wrestling the couple to the ground. The men handcuffed Hiroshi's hands behind his back, tied his feet together, stuffed a towel in his mouth, and gagged him before dropping a hood over his head. Then they did the same to Kako.

“The four men picked up the bound and gagged couple and carried them to a nearby grove of pine trees.”

They dropped them on the ground, then covered them with tree branches. The entire procedure was business-like and efficient, with each attacker seemingly knowing exactly what to do. They didn't speak amongst themselves, only breaking their silence once to tell Kako to be quiet. After the couple was concealed, the men sat down in front of them. They appeared to be waiting for something.

Minutes passed, and soon, they'd been waiting for about half an hour. Somewhere nearby, a dog suddenly barked. They appeared to scare the men off, and they disappeared. Hiroshi managed to get his feet despite the hood over his head, and his feet being tied together. He hopped to a house that stood about 100 meters away and raised to the alarm.

Police investigating the attempted abduction later found some foreign-made objects close to the scene. Items that were impossible to purchase in Japan. Roughly 18 months later, on January 6, 1980, Japan's National Police Agency announced that a single group was behind all three abductions and the aborted attempt. The Yoketa's friend brought the article about the abductions to them, in case it had something to do with Megumi's disappearance. Although Megumi was younger than all of the victims listed, and had gone missing on her own at a different time of year.

There were some similarities, the time of day, the beach side setting, the complete lack of clues. As Sakya Yoketa read the article, she immediately thought to herself, "This might be the explanation for everything." Case fire will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors.

At 1130pm on Saturday, November 28, 1987, more than a decade after Megumi Yoketa's disappearance, Korean Air Flight KL-858 taxied down a runway at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq before taking off.

“The Boeing 707's ultimate destination was Seoul, the capital of South Korea, but there were two stopovers scheduled on the journey.”

First, it would have a brief layover in Abu Dhabi, followed by another in Bangkok, Thailand.

KL-858 completed its first leg within three hours with no issues. As the plane began the second leg from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok, there were 104 passengers at 11 crew members on board. All were South Koreans, with the exception of one Lebanese national and one Indian national. Most of the passengers were young workers who were returning home after spending several years working on construction and development projects in the Middle East. A diplomat was also on board, the Korean Council general from the country's embassy in Baghdad accompanied by his wife.

“At around 205pm on Sunday, November 29, Korean Standard Time, the plane was cruising over the end of an sea.”

While at radio to message to the control tower in Rangoon, we expect to arrive at Bangkok right on time, time and location normal.

Moments later, an explosion erupted, tearing the aircraft apart and sending the wreckage of KL-858 plunging into the waters of the end of the sea below. Everybody on board was killed. After the flight vanished from airspace and ceased communications with control towers below, the South Korean government and Korean air immediately began to search for the plane. They received assistance from governments closest to the possible crash points, including those of Myanmar, Thailand and India.

“A number of possibilities were considered, including that of a terrorist attack.”

Investigation authorities quickly obtained the flight manifest, and scrutinised the names of passengers who'd been on board.

In particular, they were interested in individuals who had disembarked KL-858 at the first LAV or in Abu Dhabi, and not reported for the second leg.

Two names soon caught their attention. Japanese, father and daughter named Shinichi Hachua and Mayumi Hachia. The pair was suspicious for a number of reasons. They had listed their ultimate destination as Bahrain, an island country in West Asia that could have been more easily reached by a direct route. The Korean air flight they had taken had involved long three to six hour waits at airports, making it far less convenient.

Notably, on their entry report forms, the two had only provided their given names of Shinichi and Mayumi. This was at odds with the Japanese custom of simply providing a surname. After authorities approached them at their hotel in Bahrain to discuss the planes disappearance, they abruptly checked out ahead of their plan to departure. Suspitions raised, the Korean embassy in Bahrain had the couple's passports checked by the Japanese embassy. Both were confirmed to be fakes.

The Bahrain authorities were immediately notified and immigration officials apprehended the father and daughter at the airport, where they were preparing to board a flight to Rome. They were informed that they would have to return to Japan as there was an issue with their passports. A guard watched over the two as they sat on a bench outside the airport's immigration office. The father Shinichi was about 70 years old and frail. His daughter, Mayumi, was 25.

Both were quiet. Mayumi pulled out a packet of malbrose cigarettes and offered it to her father.

After smoking them, Shinichi and Mayumi slumped over and collapsed.

The cigarettes contained cyanide.

“Shinichi Hachio was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead upon arrival, but Mayumi survived.”

Investigators now had an even stronger suspicion as to who had been behind the attack on KAL-858. The method of suicide used by Shinichi and attempted by Mayumi exactly matched that employed by agents from North Korea who had been apprehended in the past. The fact that the target of the attack could be in a South Korean airline carrying mostly South Korean passengers, underscored the likelihood that the bombing had been a terrorist attack by North Korea. The history of the two carriers was fraught and had only intensified in recent years.

From 1910 until 1945, Japan had annexed Korea, placing it under Japanese control.

After Japan was defeated in the Second World War, the Allied powers took over Korea, dividing its peninsula into two.

The Soviet Union occupied the North while the United States took the South.

“When the Cold War escalated over the ensuing decades, the border between the two carriers became more important.”

Unhappy with the separation, North Korea wanted to unite the two countries under a single authoritarian communist regime, led by their supreme leader Kim Il-sung. In 1950, two years after the Soviet troops had left, North Korea invaded the South, leading to the Korean War. The war lasted three years with South Korea and the United States managing to thwart the North.

There was never a formal peace treaty, and these events only served to further increase the hostilities between the two countries.

Over the next few decades, the two carriers exchanged threats and attacks. The fighting became more underhanded with North Korea committing terrorist attacks against the South and sending spyboats to kidnapped citizens.

“In the 1980s, South Korea's economy grew rapidly, and the country had become far more modernised.”

It was chosen as the host nation for the 1988 Olympics, an event that would put South Korea on the world stage, as further motivation for North Korea to cause disruption. An investigation found that the Japanese father and daughter going as Shinichi and Mayumi Hachia were actually North Korean agents named Kim-sung-il and Kim-hyun-hee. 25-year-old Kim-hyun-hee survived her suicide attack and was transferred to Seoul in South Korea. She initially denied any connection to the attack, instead claiming to be a Chinese orphan who had grown up in Japan.

But after more than a week of interrogation, she gradually began to open up after watching a film that depicted a life in South Korea. She realized that everything she had been told by the North was a lie. As a North Korean, Kim-hyun-hee was taught that citizens of South Korea were impoverished and lived lives of hardship. In 10th state-run propaganda was used to make North Koreans believe that their neighbor to the South was nothing more than an American puppet state. Upon seeing what the country was actually like, Kim-hyun-hee broke down and said, "For give me, I am sorry. I will tell you everything."

Hyun-hee was trained as an espionage agent for North Korea and had been tasked with carrying out the bombing of KOL-858. Kim-young-il, the son and heir of North Korea's Supreme Leader, had ordered the attack to scare away other countries from attending their Olympic Games in Seoul the following year. Kim-hyun-hee was told that the attack would assist in re-unifying the two careers and creating one peaceful nation state. In preparation for the attack, Hyun-hee had spent three years traveling under KOL.

On November 12, 1987, Hyun-hee and a much older partner in crime Kim-sung-il left the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to fly to Budapest, Hungary.

In Vienna, they purchased their tickets for flight KOL-858.

“Next, they travelled to Belgrade, where they received their weapons for the attack from North Korean officials.”

From disguised as a Panasonic brand radio and a liquid explosive inside a liquor bottle. They made their way to Iraq to board the faded flight, waiting in the transit lounge for almost three and a half hours. While waiting, Kim-sung-il set the time bomb to detonate nine hours later.

Then they boarded KOL-858, which took off at 11.30pm.

They put the explosives in the overhead compartment above their assigned seats in 7b and 7c. After a three hour flight, they disembarked in Abu Dhabi, while KOL-858 continued on to Bangkok, exploding over the end of mc. As well as detailing how the attack had been planned and committed, Kim Hyun-hee shared information about her life in North Korea. When she was 16 years old, she had been chosen for espionage training by the workers' party of Korea, the country's sole ruling party.

“This involved spending seven years and eight months at an elite secret school, where she underwent grueling psychological and physical training.”

Hyun-hee was trained in firearms and other means of murder, such as how to kill a person using only her hands or feet.

Hyun-hee also studied a number of languages to weighed in her spy activities, and was taught how to pass herself off as other nationalities. She had been able to pass as Japanese because she decided to study the language and culture, and the person who had taught her those things was a woman who had been abducted from Japan. It was well known that North Korea had been abducting South Korea since the Korean War. It was estimated that almost 83,000 individuals were taken during the war, and about 500 were taken over the two decades following.

“Most of these were fishermen whose boats strayed too close to the North.”

What was less well known was that North Korea had also started abducting citizens from other countries. Rumes occasionally spread around Japan about North Korea abducting people, but many dismissed these as conspiracy theories driven by Cold War paranoia. But Japanese authorities began to realize that their own citizens were being targeted after three couples were taken from seaside locations in 1978, and another couple survived an attempted abduction. Foreign made objects were found at the scene of each crime, and suspicious radio transmissions that were believed to be espionage related were intercepted at the locations where each of the couples went missing at the time they went missing.

The link between these disappearances was initially kept under tight wraps. About 18 months after the abductions, the National Police Agency publicly confirmed that all four cases were connected and were the work of a foreign intelligence agency, though they didn't name which foreign agency. It was believed that the victims had been targeted so that their identities could be stolen for espionage purposes. Passports could be issued in their names, and foreign spies could pose as the missing Japanese citizens.

A friend of the Yokatars soren article about this, and abroad it to their attention. Struck by the similarities between these cases and that of her missing daughter, Megumi, Yokatar, approached the newspaper's local bureau and Nigatar police station to share her concerns. But no one she spoke to agreed that Megumi's case could be connected. There were similarities between her disappearance and the others, but there were differences too, such as the time of year and Megumi's young age. If people were being abducted for identity theft, then Megumi would be useless to any foreign agency.

Being only 13, she was too young to apply for a passport without her parents' signatures. The Spondent, Sakia Yokatar dropped what it felt to her like a promising lead. There was little more said about the disappearances in the media. But behind the scenes, Japanese authorities identified more missing people throughout the country as North Korean abductees, including a mother and daughter who disappeared after a shopping trip.

In total, Japan identified 10 victims who had been abducted in seven separate incidents.

“North Korean terrorist turned defector Kim Hyun-hee told South Korean investigators in 1987 that she had been taught Japanese by a woman abducted from Japan.”

This indicated that Japanese citizens weren't just kidnapped for their identities. They were taken for the skills they offered to. Kim Hyun-hee said her Japanese teacher had been given the Korean name Leon-hee. Further investigations would reveal that she was Yoko Taguchi, a 22-year-old mother who went missing in Tokyo in June 1978 after dropping off her three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son at Daycare. Kim Hyun-hee lived alongside Yoko for two years. Yoko often cried and told Kim Hyun-hee how much she missed her children.

Kim Hyun-hee later identified several other kidnapped victims she'd met who were made to teach spies Japanese.

One of them was Megumi Yokatar.

“Meanwhile, the Yokatar tried their best to move on with their lives. A few years after Megumi went missing, they relocated to Tokyo.”

It was a difficult and painful move to make, but Shigaru's work required his transfer to the country's capital, and today believed the fresh start would be in their sons' best interests. The police in Nigatar promised to continue their investigation, and friends said they would make sure to keep an eye out for Megumi. Still, leaving the place where their daughter had a last been with them was devastating.

The family wrote down their new address on a piece of paper, placed it in plastic, and put it on the front door of their Nigatar house in case Megumi ever came back.

By January 1997, almost 20 years had passed since Megumi went missing. Her younger brothers had grown up, and her parents were now in their 60s, and living in Kawasaki, a city in the Greater Tokyo area.

“Shigaru had retired from his job at the Bank of Japan, and Sakia had found a new faith and a purpose after converting to Christianity.”

On Tuesday, January 21, at around lunchtime, the phone rang at the Yokatar residence. Shigaru answered it. On the other line, was an acquaintance associated with the Bank of Japan, who told him that the personal secretary to a politician was trying to get in touch with Shigaru. Shigaru immediately called the secretary, whose name was Tatsuki Shihiyomoto, as requested. After greeting Shigaru, Mr. Yomoto stunned the now '64-year-old father by saying,

"We have information that your daughter is alive in North Korea." Shigaru listened in shock as Mr. Yomoto explained that he had been looking into the abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea. He wanted to discuss Megumi's case further, but didn't feel comfortable doing so over the phone. Shigaru Yokatar agreed to meet Mr. Yomoto right away and rushed to meet him at the National Diet Building, the building in Tokyo that houses Japan's government.

When he got there, Mr. Yomoto showed Shigaru a copy of modern Korea magazine. It featured an article by a journalist named Kenji Ishidaka, who had produced the television documentary about North Korea's kidnappings. Ishidaka had initially set out to cover the issue of North Korea's repatriation program, in which ethnic Koreans living in Japan were lowered to the North with false promises of a better life. While investigating the matter, he realized that North Korea had been abducting Japanese nationals as well.

Ishidaka had written a feature article on the issue for the October 1996 edition of modern Korea. The magazine had been sent to Mr. Yomoto by an acquaintance who included a note that read. Please read, the abducted middle school girl was Megumi Yokatar. Shigaru Yokatar read Kenji Ishidaka's article. In it, the journalist described how high-ranking officials from South Korea's intelligence agency told him about North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens.

Two years earlier, in late 1994, a former spy from North Korea who had defected to the South had testified that before North Korea began kidnapping Japanese couples, they had abducted a child.

“At 13-year-old girl had been taken from somewhere along the Sea of Japan coast, though the spy wasn't sure exactly where.”

He believed that the girl was the younger of a pair of twins. She had been walking home from badminton practice when she happened to spot some North Korean spies about to depart the area via the beach. They abducted her so she couldn't report what she'd seen. As soon as Shigaru Yokatar read the article, he knew the girl had to be his daughter Megumi.

Some of the details were so specific, such as the fact she'd been walking home from badminton practice.

The mention of her being the younger of a set of twins was also interesting. Megumi wasn't a twin, but her younger brothers were.

“This seemed like more confirmation that might have been muddled somewhere along the way.”

When Shigaru told his wife, Sakya, about the magazine article, she felt a rush of a relation at the news that her daughter was still alive. The feeling was quickly replaced by a sense of despair.

If the story was true, then retrieving Megumi from North Korea would surely be an impossible mission.

The news that Megumi Yokatar had possibly been found 20 years after she went missing, spread to like wildfire. Modern Korea ran an article with the headline, "Identity of abducted a girl confirmed." Politicians promised to pursue the matter further, with one member submitting a letter of inquiry on the matter to the government. Garyu and Sakya Yokatar met with Kenji Ishitika, the journalist who'd written the article to speak about what he knew.

“He also set up a meeting between the Yokatar and a former North Korean spy named Anmyeon Jin.”

In March 1997, the couple travelled to South Korea to meet An. An had defected several years earlier in 1993 by crossing the 38th Parallel, the border between North and South Korea, and a seeking political asylum. He dissents provided intelligence to South Korea about his espionage activities. Between 1988 and 1991, An had attended the Kim Jong-il Political and Military University, where North Korea spies were trained. There, he learnt how to break into properties without being detected, how to blow up a building, and how to kill people.

In October 1988, An attended a celebratory ceremony for the Korean Workers' Party. It was held in a large hall at the University, and staff attended the event alongside students. An sunset towards the front row surrounded by other students, and one of his instructors, a man named Mr. Chan. Last to enter the hall were ten Japanese teachers who taught students the Japanese language and customs. As they took their seats in the rows behind An, Mr. Chan pointed out the last Japanese teacher to far in.

She was an attractive woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a navy suit with a white blouse, and was chatting and laughing with two female colleagues. I brought her here from Nikita, Mr. Chan said. Mr. Chan went on to tell An that he and two other spies had abducted Megumi about a decade earlier in the mid-1970s. They grabbed her impulsively after she'd seen them on the beach, scared she might report seeing them. At the time, they hadn't realized how young she was, thinking her to be in her late teens or early 20s.

They hustled her onto their ship that would take them back across the sea of Japan to North Korea. Megumi cried so much that they locked her in the storage room for the entire 40-hour journey. Pleading for her mother, she scratched repeatedly against the door. When the spies went to let her out after arriving back in North Korea, Megumi appeared days and in shock. Her fingers were covered in blood from scratching her nails off on the iron door, and she had vomited everywhere.

When North Korea officials realized how young Megumi was, they reprimanded the spies who'd taken her.

Megumi continued to cry and refused to wait until she was told that if she learnt Korean, she would be taken home to her mother.

“Megumi studied hard and was a strong student becoming fluent in Korean.”

When she was 18 years old, however, she realized that she had been lied to. She wasn't going to be allowed to return to Japan. Instead, she would have to work at Kim Jong-il University, teaching young spies to pass as Japanese, so they could better disguise themselves when undertaking espionage activities. She suffered a mental health crisis and had to be hospitalized twice at Hospital 915, a treatment facility for anti-South agents and their families.

Mr Chang said that he'd seen Megumi a few times since first abducting her and always tried to speak to her, but she ignored him.

“No doubt she disliked him, aren't explained.”

Mr Chang had been back to Japan on several missions in the years after he took Megumi. On one occasion, he saw a missing person's flyer with Megumi's photograph. He stole it and took it home as a souvenir.

And saw Megumi once more a few months later, in January 1989.

She looked well and seemed to be good friends with another Japanese woman.

“As a teacher of Japanese to wood-based spies, Megumi would have lived a comfortable life by North Korean standards.”

But she would have been closely guarded with limited freedoms. Years later, after Ron defected from North Korea, he was shown a photo of Megumi as a schoolgirl and told that she was thought to have been abducted by his country. On immediately recognized the girl in the picture as the woman he had seen at Kim Jong-il University. Case fire will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. I'll tell you about the new stuff.

I'll show you the new stuff, the house of the dragon and all the series of Game of Thrones, just for HBO Max. Thank you for listening to this episode's ad. By supporting our sponsors, you support Case File to continue to deliver quality content. "Sucky Air Yogata felt like throwing up when she learnt the specifics of Megumi's kidnapping. The details about her daughter's or deal during the ships' voyage were especially painful to hear. Reflecting on Mr. Chang's claim that Megumi was taken impulsively because she'd seen the North Korean spies,

"Sucky Air recalled some reports that had emerged decades earlier. On the same day, then Megumi went missing, a couple of women had reported being stalked by two men in the same area. A suspicious vehicle had also been seen outside the school when Megumi's badminton practice was held. "Sucky Air didn't believe that Megumi was taken after seeing something she shouldn't have. She suspected that North Korean agents had been in Megatar they'd evening with the intention of abducting a woman.

Megumi had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the darkness of the street providing a perfect cover for the spies' mission.

Megatar was chosen as the organisation's chairperson.

“He and Sucky Air bonded with the other parents who had suffered like them for decades.”

Many of them had also struggled with the police force who hadn't taken their concerns seriously. As most of the abductees were aged in their early 20s, authorities had usually suspected that they'd just taken off to start a new life. The group began to lobby for the Japanese government to investigate the abductions further and intervene on behalf of their loved ones. They held rallies and coordinated a petition that received 500,000 signatures before being submitted to the Prime Minister's office. Their actions led to the Japanese media covering the story extensively.

At a press conference, Shigeri Yokata read a statement while flanked by a number of other parents and siblings of abductees.

“Please give us our sons and daughters back, he said.”

Our kids disappeared suddenly between 1977 and 1983.

We thought about everything that could have happened to them and did everything we could to find them, but we never did.

North Korea denied having abducted any foreign citizens despite the evidence to the country. And as Japan had no diplomatic relationship with North Korea negotiating with the totalitarian regime appeared impossible. But the abductees' families were angry because during the late 1990s, Japan was providing North Korea with significant support. In 1995, a famine hit North Korea due to economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thousands of North Koreans were dying from starvation with the deaths peaking in 1997.

This led to Japan sending them substantial amounts of rice and humanitarian aid.

The abductees' families wanted Japan to rescind to this support, unless North Korea returned to their kidnapped loved ones. Others supported their aims, including a well-known journalist, who publicly stated. The Japanese government has an obligation to protect its own citizens before it even considers undertaking activities for the greater good in the international community. Eventually, after several years of tireless campaigning, the advocacy group had an impact. In 2002, it was decided that the Japanese Prime Minister, Junituro Koizumi, would visit North Korea for an inaugural summit between the two countries.

“For Japan, the key motivation for the summit was to seek answers about the abductions.”

North Korea, still struggling economically and in need of aid, hoped to gain something too. On Tuesday, September 17, 2002, Prime Minister Koizumi travelled to Pyongyang, where he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He took with him video messages recorded by the abductees' family members for their loved ones. In Chigera Yoga Tars video, he updated Megumi on all the changes in their family. Both of her brothers were now married with children and her parents were living in Kawasaki.

Sakya Yoga Tars grew tearful, as she said. Megumi, I'm so happy you're alive. I wonder about your life in North Korea. I'm older now with grey hair, but we can still have fun when you get back, just like we used to. Come home soon. The meeting between the two leaders was a hugely significant moment, which only became more significant as the day went on.

At some point in the afternoon, Kim Jong-il made a shocking admission. North Korean agents had abducted a total of 13 Japanese citizens. However, they denied involvement in a number of cases that Japanese authorities attributed to them. Kim Jong-il gave a formal apology in which he distanced the government itself from the abductions, stating, "We have thoroughly investigated this matter. Decades of adversarial relations between our two countries provided the background of this incident. It was nevertheless an appalling incident.

As soon as their scheme and deeds were brought to my attention, those who were responsible were punished.

“I would like to take this opportunity to apologize straightforwardly for the regrettable conduct of those people.”

I will not allow that to happen again. [Music] Magumi Yokita's kidnapping was one of the 13 abductions that North Korea admitted to. The country provided updates on the individuals that acknowledged had been abducted. Unfortunately, eight of the 13 victims were dead.

All had died in strange circumstances.

Kiko Aremoto, who was abducted at age 23 from Denmark, died five years later of gas poisoning.

“So did a man named Toru Ishiyoka, who was abducted during a holiday in Spain in 1980.”

According to North Korea, Toru drowned in 1988. Karel Matsuki, his friend who was kidnapped alongside him, was killed in a car accident in 1996. Shui-chi Ishikawa, who vanished in 1978 with his girlfriend during a day at the beach, drowned shortly after. His girlfriend, Rameko Masamoto, died of a heart attack several years later at age 27.

Yokita-Guchi, the mother of two, who had taught Japanese to Kim Hyun-hee, was killed in a car accident on July 30, 1986.

The year before Kim Hyun-hee helped blow up KAL-858. In 1986, nine years after her abduction, Megumi Yokita married a South Korean man who was also abducted in 1977 when he was 16. The following year, Megumi gave birth to a daughter named Kim Hyun-hee. But Megumi had continued to struggle with her mental health and had to be hospitalized multiple times. She made more than one suicide attempt, and on March 13, 1993, at the age of 28, Megumi took her own life.

The Yokita's were devastated by this news. At a press conference held shortly after the summit, Shigeru Yokita went to see relayed North Korea's report, saying, "I was hoping to get better results." Sakia Yokita told the public that she refused to believe her daughter was dead, unless North Korea provided more information about how and when she died. If she's dead, then Megumi was a victim and died for a cause, Sakia had it.

“She didn't die in vain. Everyone dies eventually, but I believe she left her legacy.”

I'm still going to keep hoping, I'll keep fighting, believing she's still alive. The five surviving abductees were permitted to return home to Japan on Tuesday, October 15, 2002, and after the Japan North Korea summit. There were conditions, though. They were only going for a visit and would have to return to North Korea. They also had to leave any children they'd heard behind.

The five repatriated victims included two of the couples who'd been abducted in 1978. Sushi Chimera and Fukiye Hamamoto and Karel Hasewika and Yukiko Akuto. Both couples had married and had children in North Korea. The fifth victim was Hatomi Soga, who was kidnapped with her mother after a shopping trip. North Korea denied taking Hatomi's mother, a claim that Hatomi refuted.

Hatomi's husband and American prisoner named Charles Robert Jenkins wasn't permitted to go. The return of the five survivors was met with huge fanfare. Camera crews captured the moment they disembarked the airplane that brought them back to Japan and were embraced by loved ones waiting on the tarmac. They addressed the public at a press conference with more than one victim apologizing for making everyone worry for so long. Tragically, some had lost family members before they could be reunited.

Yasushi Chimera was 23 when he was abducted and his mother suffered such severe anxiety after his disappearance that she became very sick.

After she had surgery to treat the problem she struggled with partial paralysis and had difficulty speaking.

“She became bedridden with her husband providing full-time care.”

For years and years after Yasushi's disappearance she would cry out for him in despair. My son, my son. She told a documentary crew, "I just want the chance to say one thing. Welcome home, my son."

She died six months before Yasushi's return.

Megumi Yogita's parents watched the arrival of the abductees with a bit of sweet feeling. They knew Megumi wouldn't bear among them, but they kept hoping to see her step off the plane.

“Megumi's daughter, Kimun-young, was 15 years old in 2002.”

She attended the Japan North Korea summit at the request of North Korean officials and was presented to the Japanese Prime Minister. She brought with her the badminton racket that Megumi had been carrying when she was abducted and a photo of her mother that had been taken when Megumi was in her 20s.

Megumi's parents were shocked to discover that they had a granddaughter.

In the 2006 documentary, Abduction, the Megumi Yakota story, Sakiya remarked, "If North Korea was a normal country, I'd go there and see you on young and give her a hug. I'd do anything for her, but North Korea is an evil place." Megumi's husband Kim-young-nam had remarried in the years since Megumi's death.

“In 2006, he was permitted to have some family members from South Korea visit.”

During this visit, he confirmed that Megumi had taken her own life after suffering from depression and had attempted suicide several times before. But some people doubted these claims, suspecting that he was merely parroting a script written by the North Korean government. There were some inconsistencies when it came to Megumi's supposed death. Initially, North Korea said she died on March 13, 1993. But another abductee, Fukia Hamamoto, said she'd live next door to Megumi for several months, beginning in June 1994.

Fukia said that Megumi had been suffering from severe depression and was not doing well. Fellow abductee, Kawru has a week air, said that Megumi had separated from her husband in the spring of 1993. About a year later, Kawru had helped arrange for Megumi to go to a psychiatric hospital to treat her depression. Following these statements, North Korea amended its claim, asserting that Megumi had actually died a year later than they'd previously said. They produced a death certificate with the date of March 13, 1994.

However, this certificate appeared to be falsified and was dated three months before Fukia Hamamoto's sightings of Megumi. In late September 2002, after the summit, Japanese investigators were permitted to visit the hospital when Megumi was committed and subsequently took her life. It was said that despite being in psychiatric care, Megumi had removed her clothes and used them to hang herself. The hospital produced a record of Megumi's death, but part of the record was crossed out. On November 15, 2004, 27 years to the day since Megumi had been kidnapped,

Megumi was told to go to Japan's Foreign Ministry office. There, they were given more photos of Megumi from her time in North Korea and an earn. Japanese investigators had brought back these items from a recent visit to North Korea, where they attempted to obtain more answers about the deceased abductees. They explained that the earn contained Megumi's cremated remains. Megumi had supposedly been buried following her death, but North Korea had recently located her remains and cremated them. The Japanese government ordered that the remains be tested for DNA. They were not a match for Megumi.

Remains that had been provided for Kerala Matsuki proved to be false as well. Megumi's parents were relieved by this result, but also angered by the cruelty of being sent fake remains.

There was no prior experience in the analysis of cremated remains. He described his tests as inconclusive and added that the specimens had been given were tiny, weighing one and a half grams at most and easily contaminated.

“He had tested all five given to him and had no more available to examine.”

It was later reported that North Korea was desperate to produce the remains of some Japanese abductees as their failure to do so was interfering with negotiations between the two countries.

They had claimed that the graves of six of the victims had been washed away during floods. Megumi, however, hadn't been buried in a graveyard. The hospital where she had died supposedly buried her in a mountain that lay behind the building without a funeral or any form of marking, even though to do so would violate North Korea's environmental hygiene laws.

“The staff member who'd worked there at the time tried to recall the spot where Megumi was buried, and after looking in the area, they did find some human remains. It was assumed these were Megumi's, but they may have belonged to another patient.”

The claim was published in a memoir by North Korea's former deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, who defected to the south.

The Japanese government and media believed North Korea was deliberately trying to deceive them by sending the wrong remains. He explained that it had been a genuine mistake. Many people in Japan, including the Yogatars, believed that Megumi and other abductees said to have died are still alive and are being hidden somewhere in North Korea. Kim Hyun-hee, the former North Korean agent, who blew up KAL-858, has also said that she believes Megumi is alive.

“Many who was initially sentenced to death for her crime, but was later pardoned, has advocated for the North Korean abductees. She had heard of Megumi's hospitalization for mental health, but said she was told her condition was not severe.”

There have been reports from multiple sources that Megumi taught Japanese to Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il's sons. Kim Jong-chul and Kim Jong-nam, whose story is covered in episode 185 of Case File.

It's thought that if this is true, Megumi's proximity to the Supreme Leader's family may be the motivation for North Korea to lie about her death. In November 2011, a South Korean magazine reported that a 2005 phone directory for the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, listed a woman with the Korean name Kim Jong-gong, who had the same birth date as Megumi Yogatars. Reports later indicated that this woman was actually Megumi's daughter. It is unclear why her birth date would be listed as her mothers.

Despite North Korea's insistence that the five surviving abductees sent back to Japan returned to the North, the Japanese government refused. In 2004, the children of the abductees were permitted to travel to Japan to be reunited with their parents. In an interview with the Japanese police, abductees Yusushi Chimera and Karu Hasewika identified one of their abducters as Shin Guantu and infamous North Korean spy, also suspected of kidnapping Megumi Yogatars. Shin was apprehended by South Korean law enforcement in 2014, while traveling under a Japanese passport issued in the name of Tadaki Hara.

Tadaki was a 43-year-old man who went missing from the Japanese city of Miyazaki in 1980. While North Korea has only admitted to 13 abductions of Japanese citizens, the Japanese government has officially recognized 17 victims. Some have estimated that up to 100 Japanese people have been taken by North Korea. Other individuals from around the world have been taken too, including citizens of the United States, France, Lebanon, Thailand, Italy, Singapore and many more. Following the death of North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il in 2011, there was hope that progress might be made.

But nothing has changed under the leadership of his son and successor Kim Jong-un.

North Korea claims the matter is settled, while Japan maintains that the issue still needs to be addressed.

“In March 2014, Shigeru and Sakia Yogatars travelled to the capital of Mongolia for a special purpose.”

The Japanese government had helped organize the trip so that the Yogatars could finally meet Kim Jong-un.

Mugumi is now 26 year old daughter. Sakia later described the meeting as a miraculous event, telling reporters, "We had hoped to meet her as a family. What we have dreamt about for such a long time has come true. She was struck by how closely Un-Yong resembled Mugumi. Un-Yong also brought her 10-month-old daughter along, allowing the Yogatars to meet their great-grandchild as well.

They were careful about what they said, mindful that their granddaughter was watched closely by North Korea and would not be permitted to discuss Mugumi's life or suppose a death candidly. She has grown up in that country, Sakia said, "We weren't sure how much of the truth she could tell us." Although meeting Un-Yong was a precious moment for the Yogatars, they also felt grief that the person they wished to see most of all, Mugumi couldn't be there.

“Sakia later told journalists that she had wondered privately if Mugumi was watching the reunion from a secret part of the building, the bit and from joining her loved ones.”

Four years later, in April 2018, Shigeru Yogatars, now in his mid-80s, was hospitalized for real health. He died in 2020 at the age of 87. The day before Mugumi went missing, Shigeru's 45th birthday. Her gift to him was a turtle shell comb to keep his messy hair tidy, with Mugumi instructing her father to look after himself for she handed it over. From that moment, he carried the comb with him all ways, and took it everywhere he went until he's final days.

Sakia Yogatars is now 90 years old and is still seeking answers for her daughter alongside her two sons.

“In 1999, Sakia wrote a book about Mugumi titled North Korea Kidnapped My daughter.”

As of 2026, she is still pleading for Mugumi's return and begging for the Japanese government to take action.

In an interview with the Japan Times, Sakia said, "Everyone ages, but I never imagined spending my life in this way.

We could have lived happily if we were together. This is Angela Suffering." In 2006, the Yogatars participated in a documentary about Mugumi's abduction and the other abductees, which was called abduction, Mugumi Yogatars story. Towards the end of the film, Sakia whisperly described how she pictured a life for Mugumi after she was finally returned home to Japan.

When she comes back, I want her to feel liberated. I want her to experience nature so she's not confined anymore. I want her to enjoy the outdoors. She used to like lying in the grass, watching the clouds singing.

I want her to experience a big open space and hear her say, "Finally, I'm free."

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