Nobody can dispute that the disappearance of a British national in Japan in 2000 placed not only these two nations but the entire world in a state of profound shock. That’s because inquiries into this led to the identification of a serial rapist and the death of Carita Ridgway, as detailed in Netflix’s “Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case.” We now have information for you if you just want to understand more about the latter, with a focus on the events that occurred, the questions that followed, and the overall impact.
How Did Carita Ridgway Die?
Despite being an Australian citizen, Carita was born on March 3, 1979, in Perth. She apparently went to school in Sydney before relocating to the lovely area of Clovelly to concentrate on her business. The fact is that this 21-year-old was steadily building a reputation as a model and was hoping to branch out into acting as well, but she quickly realised acting schools were prohibitively expensive. She bravely made the decision to do so because her older sister Samantha had recently moved to Tokyo, Japan, to be with her fiancé and teach English for a living.
Carita had thus intended to obtain a similar teaching position upon arriving in the wonderful city in December 1991, but things did not turn out as she had imagined because there were few job openings. So it’s not surprising that the young woman turned to hostessing, a non-sexual companionship job, to support herself, pay for school, and help her fiancé, a law student back home. She had no idea that this would unintentionally cause her to pass away on February 29, 1992, only three days before her 22nd birthday, which she had already made arrangements to celebrate.
Reports state that about a week ago, a mysterious man going by the name of Nishita dropped off an unconscious Carita at a nearby hospital and said she had food illness. That wasn’t the case, though, as her condition quickly deteriorated to the point that her liver failed and she was deemed brain dead. At this point, many speculated that hepatitis E might be to blame. It wasn’t until 2000 that it was revealed she had died from chloroform-related poisoning because her family decided to remove her from life support on the 29th without obtaining a court order for an autopsy.
Who Killed Carita Ridgway?
Joji Obara, a serial rapist who had previously been charged with dating other young hostesses over the years, was the one who murdered Carita. The previous vases had actually come to life because of Lucie Blackman’s disappearance because she too worked as a hostess, but they were later linked to Joji or one of his many aliases because of his love of expensive cars. Records show that this suspect called the missing child on the day she disappeared, but it took some time before he was positively recognised as Joji because he went under various aliases.
As a result, he was arrested on October 12, 2000, for the various rape allegations. At the time, he wasn’t immediately charged with anything related to Lucie because the evidence against him was only circumstantial. Joji allegedly knew his pranks were finally coming to an end, which is why he reportedly said nothing while in detention and a thorough search of his entire estate for any kind of clue became necessary. But little did the authorities realise that they would soon find everything they would need to prosecute this serial predator, including staggering quantities of alcohol, chloroform, and other sedatives.
He’d recorded himself sexually assaulting the unconscious corpses of perhaps almost every woman he’d drugged, and there were over 400 video recordings with different ladies’ initial names on them as well as a journal detailing his heinous crimes. One of these was the footage of former Australian model and hostess Carita Ridgway, in which it was very evident that she had passed away as a result of him. Ultimately, in 2007, he was found guilty of her homicide and eight counts of rape; a year later, he was also found guilty of dismembering and abandoning Lucie.
