The Kidnapping That Became an International Crisis | Forensic Files

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41-year-old Sake Yokata felt slightly nervous as the clock tick past 700 p.m. on Tuesday, November 15, 1977.
Her daughter, Mumi, aged 13, was late in returning home from the bad mintum practice she attended after school.
Mumi walked to and from her middle school each day, and no matter how late her badminton practice ran, she was
usually home by 6:00. If there was a deviation from that plan, she made sure to let Sakiier know.
The previous day, the badminton club had held a post training meeting, which Mcumi had made sure to tell her mother
about in advance. She'd arrived home at 6:30 that night. half an hour later than usual,
but Mcumi hadn't said anything about another meeting or anything else that might delay her return home on Tuesday.
After checking whether Mcumi's twin brothers, who were 9 years old, knew where their big sister might be, Saka
decided to go out and look for her daughter. She put on some sandals and left the large singlestory home where
the Yogatar family lived on the coast of the Japanese port city of Nikatar. The Yogatars, Sakiier, her husband
Shagaru, and their three children, Mumi, Tatsuya, and Takayya, had only lived there for just over a year. They were
used to moving about as Shagaru's work for the Bank of Japan saw him transferred to a different city every
few years. They had relocated from Hiroshima to Nigatar 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.
Sakiier Yakot hurried along the dark, dimly lit streets towards Magumi's school, expecting to bump into her
daughter along the route. But she arrived at the school without seeing Mumi. When Sakia headed towards the gymnasium,
she felt a flood of relief as she saw its lights were on and heard female voices chatting inside.
Believing Mcumi must still be practicing, she almost turned to walk back home. But something stopped her.
Wanting to make sure, Sakier 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, Sakiier 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. "He's answer filled her with dread."
"They left a long time ago. All the students left a little after 6. Sakiier ran all the way home trying to
calm herself with possible scenarios along the way. Mcumi might have walked a different
route home than usual or gone to visit a friend. Once Sakiier was back at home, she said about phoning some of Mcumi's
friends who had been at Bad Mitten Practice with her. None of them were with Mcumi, 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. Mumi had been laughing and everything had seemed normal. Then she left at
about 6:25 p.m. with two friends. The three girls walked part of the way together along a long street that led to
the sea. One of Mcumi's friends soon turned right at a corner. Her other friend subsequently turned left at a
busy intersection. She and Mcumi said goodbye at 6:35 p.m. Mcumi 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. Sake also called Mcumi's badminton coach who urged Sakayair to stay calm. Mumi
might have stopped off somewhere else, like a bookshop, but Sake knew it wasn't in her
daughter's character to go somewhere without letting her know. She grabbed a torch and took her two
sons out to look for Mumi with her. Sake searched the neighboring streets, a Goku shrine that sat a few blocks away,
and the long road that led to the sea, which Mumi had walked with her friends. Saki shone the torch into parked cars
that lined the street and looked out across the beach's shore. There was no sign of Mumi.
Sakiier began to panic that her daughter might be locked in the boot of one of the nearby parked cars, but had no way
of opening them to check. At a loss, she and the boys walked back home at around
8:00. Shortly after they arrived, the home phone rang. It was Chagaru 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 Sake begged him
to come home right away, explaining the situation. Shageru rushed home in a taxi and
immediately went out to search for Meumi. Finding no sign of her, he decided it was time to call the police.
At 9:50 p.m., police from Nigata 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 neighboring district.
The officers searched some of the same places Sakiier had, as well as a nearby pine forest and a nearby vacant lot
dotted with overgrown shrubs where the University of Nicotar science building had once stood.
Two sniffer dogs were given me scent 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 Mcumi would have walked. When they reached the corner where Mcumi
should have turned left, they abruptly stopped. They turned around and around in
circles, refusing to walk any further. Mcumi's scent had been lost less than 250 m from her home.
The search was called off at midnight and resumed at 5:00 a.m. Police formed a grid search to examine the beach and
other locations in more detail. Divers searched the sea, checking between the concrete tetropods used to
protect the shoreline in case Mcumi's body was stuck under one. They doornocked the area and stood at
the intersection where Mcumi was last seen holding a photograph of her and questioning passers by.
But nobody had seen Mumi and nothing belonging to her was found. 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 Yogat's
family's telephone and parked unmarked cars nearby to keep a close eye on things.
Hoping desperately that someone might call with the news of Meumi. Sakeier and Chagaru slept fully clothed night after
night by the phone. No one claiming responsibility for Mcumi's disappearance ever rang.
After a week went by with no calls and no information from the members of the public being stopped and questioned
daily, police decided to go public with their investigation. On Tuesday, November 22, the local
newspaper ran a big article on Mcumi's disappearance. The story also reached the national
papers. The Yokata family were hopeful that this media coverage would result in some
muchneeded leads. They also made appearances on several daytime television shows to publicized
their daughter's case, but nothing ever followed. As days turned to weeks with no answers,
the Yokatars struggled to make sense of their new reality. Meumi's 9-year-old twin brothers cried
frequently asking their parents, "Where did Magumi go?" Sakaya Yakot felt overwhelmed by anxiety
and became highly emotional. Chagaru managed to remain composed, holding himself together for his family.
He constantly reassured them. "She is all right. She will be back." Sakiier Yakakota clutched at hope that
her daughter might have gone missing of her own valition. The move from Hiroshima to Niga the
previous year hadn't been easy. Although the family was provided for by Shagaru's employer, who gave them a big
house in a lovely neighborhood to live in, Mumi missed Hiroshima and was initially lonely.
Sakiier empathized with her daughter. From the moment she first set eyes on Nigatar, she felt it was a forlorn and
lonely place. Like Mcumi, Sakier missed the sunny streets of Hiroshima. Mcumi had soon settled into school and
made friends. But perhaps she'd been unhappier than she let on. Maybe she'd become depressed about something and
wanted to be alone. In the days before she went missing, Meumi 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'd been a tournament for students of Mumi's age throughout the city. She and her partner
had competed in doubles and placed fifth. Sakiier and Shagaru had been proud of their daughter, but Meumi was hard on
herself, saying, "It's not good at all. At our school, fifth isn't even considered good."
She'd agonized 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, Mcumi thought about telling her
bad mitten coach that she wouldn't participate. On the day she went missing, she'd been
planning to speak to him about it. Sakiier 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 Meumi on ferry passenger lists.
Mcumi's father, Shagaru, 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. Mcumi 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, Sakier and Chagaru walked together to the beach
every day just in case some of Meumi's belongings washed up on the shore. About 2 months after Meumi went missing,
the phone rang at their house one day in January 1978. Sakiier picked it up, answering yes when
the caller on the other line asked if they had the Yogatar residence. I have Meumi with me, the caller said.
Upon hearing this, Sakiier'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 long discounted the notion that Mcumi
might have been kidnapped for ransom. Sakiier asked the caller to please hold for one moment, then scribbled a note
that read, "Phone call from kidnapper. Call police. Go next door." She handed the note to one of her sons
who was homesick from school. Sakiier then returned to the call and tried to pate the man on the other end
while she waited. He sounded like he was in his mid20s. Soon Sakiier'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 Sakier maintained the conversation. It would take time for the tracer to
work and Sakier needed to stretch out the call for as long as possible. The caller made no demands, so Sakier
started asking him questions. She asked how he knew Magumi and where she was now.
The caller claimed to have met her at Nigatar 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," Sakiier 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 million yen
delivered near Hioryama Beach at 9:00 p.m. that night. This was about 360 km northeast of
Nigatar on the other side of the country. Sakier promised to deliver the ransom herself.
In the meantime, detectives had successfully traced 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 Sakia had thought. He was a high school student.
Newspaper articles about Mumi'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 Mcumi wasn't working there. Sakiier and Chagaru felt their hope dissipate as suddenly as it had arrived.
Over the next year, the police dedicated 3,000 mandays to investigating Magumi's
disappearance. Her young age meant the case was a top priority, but no trace of Mcumi 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 Mcumi went missing. The girl
was several years older than Mcumi and lived nearby. She had been walking home at about 6:00
p.m. that day, about 30 minutes before Mcumi left her school. She was walking down the same long
street that took Mcumi home when she noticed two men walking towards her from the beach.
As the girl passed 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 glancing back again once she was a little further away. The two men were looking at her and talking.
She ran the rest of the way home. When she later learned about Mcumi'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 lot where the
University of Nicotar'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 mumies 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, beckoning towards her. Scared, the woman
hurried away. Finally, one of the other students in the badminton club who'd been training
with Mcumi spotted a white car parked across the road on the school's north side.
The car 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 Yokotars left their
front door unlocked and the porch light on just in case Meumi came home. They even purchased a stronger light bulb so
it would shine brighter. Whenever she heard a car drive by at night, Sakiier rushed outside to check
if it was her daughter coming home. The Yokotars 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 Mcumi. Every day they scoured the newspapers in
the hopes of a report that might be relevant. On Monday, January 7, 1980, more than 2
years after Meumi had gone missing, a friend of the Yogatars stopped by their home with an article they hadn't seen.
Published in a daily national paper, it bore the headline, mysterious disappearance of three
couples from beaches in Fukui, Nigatar, and Kagoshima in the summer of 1978. It turned out that Meumi 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-old Yasushi Chimra and Fukiier Hamamoto left their respective homes to go on a date.
Yasushi and Fukiier headed to Wakasar Bay in Obama, a city in Japan's Fukui Prefecture, more than 430 km from Nigar.
The couple was never seen again. There was no reason for them to leave without telling anybody. They were
engaged to be married in 4 months time and had already booked the reception hall for their wedding. Both families
were delighted about the upcoming nuptules and the couple were happy in their lives.
A few weeks later, on Monday, July 31, a 20-year-old university student named Cayaru Huawika left home on his bicycle
dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. Cayaru was in his third year of university and had returned home for the
summer holidays to his family's residence in Cashew, a seaside city in Nigar Prefecture, about 46 km from
Nigatar. Cayaru had told his grandmother that he'd be home for dinner. He was just
heading out to meet a girl at the library. 22-year-old butician Yuko Okuda had told
her mother she was meeting Cayaru at the library at 6:00 p.m. They planned to have tea together and then Yuko would be
home by 8:00. Neither of them ever came home. Karu's bicycle was later found outside
the library at a bike rack. 2 weeks after this, on Saturday, August 12, 23-year-old Shuichi Ichawa and
24year-old Ramiko Masamoto went to a beach in Fukiyaga, Kagashima Prefecture, about 1,400 km from Nigata near the
southern tip of Japan. Their plan was to watch the sunset together. Both disappeared without a trace.
Although they'd all vanished from different places in different regions of the country, there were a number of
similarities. 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 Hashi and Ko, not
their real names, had experienced a terrifying ordeal. They lived in Tekkawaka city roughly 250
km southwest of Nigatar. And on Tuesday, August 15, 1978, they went with some relatives to Shima Beach, which was only
a short distance from their homes. The group swam throughout the afternoon, and most of them left at around 5:00
p.m. to give Hashi and Ko some privacy. Hiroshi and Ko, who were engaged to be married, continued swimming until about
6:30 p.m. 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 mid30s.
All wore long, loose pants, short-sleeved shirts, and runners. They were tanned and muscular.
Hashi and Ko expected the four men to walk straight past them, but instead they suddenly rushed them, grabbing and
wrestling the couple to the ground. The men handcuffed Hashi'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 Ko.
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 Ko 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. This appeared to scare the men off and
they disappeared. Hashi managed to get to his feet despite the hood over his head and his feet
being tied together. He hopped to a house that stood about 100 m away and raised the alarm.
Police investigating the attempted abduction later found some foreignade 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 Yokatar's friend brought the article about the abductions to them in case it
had something to do with Meumi's disappearance. Although Meumi 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 beachside setting, the complete lack of clues. As Sakiier Yokatar read the article, she
immediately thought to herself, "This might be the explanation for everything. At 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 28,
1987, more than a decade after Meumi Yokatar's disappearance, Korean Airflight Kal 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. KAL858 completed its first leg within 3 hours
with no issues. As the plane began the second leg from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok, there were 104
passengers and 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 console general from the country's embassy in Baghdad, accompanied by his wife.
At around 2:05 p.m. on Sunday, November 29, Korean Standard Time, the plane was cruising over the Andaman Sea.
The pilot radioed a message to the control tower in Rangon. 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 KAL858 plunging into the waters of the Andaman 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 scrutinized the names of passengers
who'd been on board. In particular, they were interested in individuals who had disembarked KAL858
at the first layover in Abu Dhabi and not reboarded for the second leg. Two names soon caught their attention. A
Japanese father and daughter named Shinichi Hatchawa and Mayumi Hatcha. 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 airflight they had taken had
involved long 3 to 6-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
plane's disappearance, they abruptly checked out ahead of their planned departure.
Suspicions raised, the Korean embassy in Bahrain had the couple's passports checked by the Japanese embassy.
Both were confirmed to be fakes. The Bahini 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 Malro cigarettes and offered it to her father.
He took a cigarette, as did his daughter, and lit it. After smoking them, Shinichi and Mayumi
slumped over and collapsed. The cigarettes contained cyanide. Shinichi Hatchia 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 had been 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 Koreas 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 Koreas 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 Ilsung.
In 1950, 2 years after the Soviet troops had left, North Korea invaded the South,
leading to the Korean War. The war lasted 3 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
Koreas exchanged threats and attacks. The fighting became more underhanded with North Korea committing terrorist
attacks against the South and sending spy boats to kidnap its citizens. In the 1980s, South Korea's economy grew
rapidly and the country had become far more modernized. It was chosen as the host nation for the
1988 Olympics, an event that would put South Korea on the world stage and served as further motivation for North
Korea to cause disruption. An investigation found that the Japanese father and daughter going as Shinichi
and Mayumi Hatchia were actually North Korean agents named Kimil and Kim Hunhi. 25-year-old Kim Hyunhi survived her
suicide attempt 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 Hyunhi was taught
that citizens of South Korea were impoverished and lived lives of hardship. Intense 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 Hyuni broke down and said, "Forgive me. I am sorry. I will
tell you everything. Hyunhi was trained as an espionage agent for North Korea and had been tasked with
carrying out the bombing of Kal 858. Kim Jong-il, the son and heir of North Korea's supreme leader, had ordered the
attack to scare away other countries from attending the Olympic Games in Seoul. The following year,
Kim Hyong Hi was told that the attack would assist in reunifying the two Koreas and creating one peaceful nation
state. In preparation for the attack, Hyonhi had spent 3 years traveling undercover.
On November 12th, 1987, Hyonhi and her much older partner in crime, Kim Sunungil, left the North Korean capital
of Pongyang to fly to Budapest, Hungary. They stayed at the home of a North Korean guidance officer for almost a
week before heading to the Austrian capital of Vienna where they were given two forged Japanese passports.
In Vienna, they purchased their tickets for flight Kal 858. Next, they traveled to Bgrade where they
received their weapons for the attack from North Korean officials, a time bomb 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 3 and 1/2 hours. While waiting, Kimil set the time bomb
to detonate 9 hours later. Then they boarded KL858, which took off at 11:30 p.m.
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 Kal 858 continued on to Bangkok, exploding over
the Andaman Sea. As well as detailing how the attack had been planned and committed, Kim Hyunhi
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 7 years and 8 months at an elite secret school where she underwent grueling psychological and
physical training. Hyonhi was trained in firearms and other means of murder such as how to kill a
person using only her hands or feet. Hyonhi also studied a number of languages to aid 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'd studied 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 Koreans 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 wellknown was that North Korea had also started abducting
citizens from other countries. Rumors 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 saw an article
about this and brought it to their attention. Struck by the similarities between these
cases and that of her missing daughter, Megumi, Sakiier Yogatar approached the newspaper local bureau and Nigatar
police station to share her concerns, but no one she spoke to agreed that Mcumi'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 Mcumi's young age. If people were being abducted for identity theft, then Mcumi would be
useless to any foreign agency. Being only 13, she was too young to apply for a passport without her
parents' signatures. Despondent Sakier Yokata dropped what had 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, a 23-year-old who went missing while on holiday in Denmark, and
a woman who was taken one month before Meumi Yokatar while on her way to a knitting class.
In total, Japan identified 10 victims who had been abducted in seven separate incidents.
When the North Korean terrorist turned defector Kim Hyunhi 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, too. Kim Hunhi said her Japanese teacher had
been given the Korean name Leonhi. Further investigations would reveal that she was Yayako 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 Hyonhi lived alongside Yayiko for 2 years. Yiko often cried and told Kim Hyunhi how
much she missed her children. Kim Hyunhi later identified several other kidnap victims she'd met who were
made to teach spies Japanese. One of them was Mumi Yokatar. Meanwhile, the Yokotars tried their best
to move on with their lives. A few years after Magumi went missing, they relocated to Tokyo.
It was a difficult and painful move to make, but Shagaru's work required his transfer to the country's capital, and
they believed the fresh start would be in their son's best interests. The police in Nigar promised to continue
their investigation, and friends said they would make sure to keep an eye out for Meumi.
Still, leaving the place where their daughter had 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 Nigar house in case Mcumi ever came back. By January 1997, almost 20 years had
passed since Mcumi 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. Chagaru had retired from his job at the
Bank of Japan and Sakier had found a new faith and purpose after converting to Christianity.
On Tuesday, January 21, at around lunchtime, the phone rang at the Yogatar residence.
Chagaru 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 Chagaru.
Chagaru immediately called the secretary whose name was Tatsukushi Hyomoto as requested.
After greeting Chagaru, Mr. The Yotto stunned the now 64 yearear-old father by saying, "We have information that your
daughter is alive in North Korea." Chagaru listened in shock as Mr. Hiomatoto explained that he had been
looking into the abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea. He wanted to discuss Mcumi's case further, but didn't
feel comfortable doing so over the phone. Chagaru Yokata agreed to meet Mr. Hiomoto 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.
Hiomato showed Chagaru a copy of Modern Korea magazine. It featured an article by a journalist
named Kenji Ishidikar who had produced a television documentary about North Korea's kidnappings.
Ishidika had initially set out to cover the issue of North Korea's repatriation program in which ethnic Koreans living
in Japan were lured 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. Ishidika had written a feature article
on the issue for the October 1996 edition of Modern Korea. The magazine had been sent to Mr.
Hyomoto by an acquaintance who included a note that read, "Please read, the abducted middle school girl was Meumi
Yokatar." Shagaru Yogatar read Kenji Ishidika's article. In it, the journalist described
how highranking officials from South Korea's intelligence agency told him about North Korea's abduction of
Japanese citizens. One of the claims he'd heard was especially shocking. 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. A 13-year-old girl had been taken from
somewhere along the Sea of Japan coast, though the spire wasn't sure exactly where.
He believed 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 Shagaru Yogatar read the
article, he knew the girl had to be his daughter, Magumi. Some of the details were so specific,
such as the fact she'd been walking home from bad mintum practice. The mention of
her being the younger of a set of twins was also interesting. Mcumi wasn't a twin, but her younger brothers were.
This seemed like more confirmation that might have been muddled somewhere along the way.
When Shageru told his wife Sakiier about the magazine article, she felt a rush of
elation 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 Magumi from North Korea would surely be
an impossible mission. The news that Magumi Yogata had possibly been found 20 years after she went
missing spread like wildfire. Modern Korea ran an article with the headline, "Identity of abducted girl
confirmed. Politicians promised to pursue the matter further with one member submitting a letter of inquiry on the
matter to the government. Chagaru and Sakiier Yokatar met with Kenji Yoshidika, the journalist who'd written
the article, to speak about what he knew. He also set up a meeting between the Yokatars and a former North Korean spy
named Anne Mong Jin. In March 1997, the couple traveled to South Korea to meet Anne.
Anne had defected several years earlier in 1993 by crossing the 38th parallel, the border between North and South
Korea, and seeking political asylum. He'd since provided intelligence to South Korea about his espionage
activities. Between 1988 and 1991, Anne had attended the Kim Jong-il Political and Military
University, where North Korea spies were trained. there. He learned 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. Anne sat towards the front row
surrounded by other students and one of his instructors, a man named Mr. Chong. Last to enter the hall were 10 Japanese
teachers who taught students the Japanese language and customs. As they took their seats in the rows
behind an Mr. Chong pointed out the last Japanese teacher to file in. She was an attractive woman in her
mid20s, wearing a navy suit with a white blouse and was chatting and laughing with two female colleagues.
"I brought her here from Nikitar," Mr. Chong said. Mr. Chun went on to tell Anne that he
and two other spies had abducted Mcumi 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. Mcumi 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,
Nagumi appeared dazed 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 Korean officials realized how young Mcumi was, they reprimanded the
spies who' taken her. She was taken to a facility where she was taught Korean. Mcumi continued to cry and refused to
wait until she was told that if she learned Korean, she would be taken home to her mother.
Mcumi 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. Chung said that he'd seen Mumi a few times since first abducting her and
always tried to speak to her, but she ignored him. No doubt she disliked him, an explained
Mr. Chung had been back to Japan on several missions in the years after he took Meumi.
On one occasion, he saw a missing person's flyer with Mcumi's photograph. He stole it and took it home as a
souvenir. Anne saw Meumi 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 wouldbe spies, Mcumi would have lived a comfortable
life by North Korean standards, but she would have been closely guarded with limited freedoms.
Years later, after an defected from North Korea, he was shown a photo of Meumi as a school girl and told that she
was thought to have been abducted by his country. Anne immediately recognized the girl in
the picture as the woman he had seen at Kim Jong-il University. Sakiierre Yokata felt like throwing up
when she learned the specifics of Meumi's kidnapping. The details about her daughter's ordeal
during the ship's voyage were especially painful to hear. Reflecting on Mr. Chong's claim that
Mcumi was taken impulsively because she'd seen the North Korean spies, Sakiier recalled some reports that had
emerged decades earlier. On the same day that Mcumi 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 where Mcumi's
badminton practice was held. Sakiier didn't believe that Mcumi was taken after seeing something she shouldn't
have. She suspected that North Korean agents had been in Nigar that evening with the intention of abducting a woman.
Meumi had been in the wrong place at the wrong time with the darkness of the street providing a perfect cover for the
spies mission. After the Yokatars returned to Japan, they formed an advocacy group alongside
other family members of abductees called the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea.
Chagaru Yokata was chosen as the organization's chairperson. He and Sakiier 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 concern seriously. As most of the abductees were aged in
their early 20s, authorities had usually suspected that they' 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, Shagera Yokatar 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 contrary.
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 rescend this support unless North Korea returned 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, Junichiro
Koisumi, 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 Cooi traveled 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 Shagar Yokatar's video, he updated Magumi on all the changes in their
family. Both of her brothers were now married with children and her parents were living in Kawasaki.
Sakiier Yogatar grew tearful as she said, "Magumi, I'm so happy you're alive. I wonder about your life in North
Korea. I'm older now with gray 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. It is my understanding that this incident was initiated by special mission
organizations in the 1970s and 80s driven by blindly motivated patriotism and misguided heroism.
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. Meumi Yogatar's kidnapping was one of the 13 abductions that North Korea
admitted to. The country provided updates on the individuals it acknowledged had been abducted.
Unfortunately, eight of the 13 victims were dead. All had died in strange circumstances.
Ko Aramato, who was abducted at age 23 from Denmark, died 5 years later of gas poisoning.
So did a man named Tou Ishioa who was abducted during a holiday in Spain in 1980.
According to North Korea, Tou drowned in 1988. Carral Matsuki, his friend who was
kidnapped alongside him, was killed in a car accident in 1996. Shuichi Ichikawa, who vanished in 1978
with his girlfriend during a date at the beach, drowned shortly after. His girlfriend, Ramiko Masamoto, died of
a heart attack several years later at age 27. Yayiko Taguchi, the mother of two who
had taught Japanese to Kim Hyunhi, was killed in a car accident on July 30, 1986, the year before Kim Hyonhi helped
blow up Kal 858. In 1986, 9 years after her abduction, Mumi Yakot married a South Korean man
who was also abducted in 1977 when he was 16. The following year, Mcumi gave birth to
a daughter named Kim Unyong. But Mcumi 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, Mcumi
took her own life. The Yokotars were devastated by this news. At a press conference held shortly
after the summit, Shageru Yogatar wept as he relayed North Korea's report, saying, "I was hoping to get better
results." Sakiier Yogatar 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 Meumi was a victim
and died for a cause," Sakiier added. She didn't die in vain. Everyone dies eventually, but I believe
she left a 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, 1 month 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 had behind. The five repatriated victims included
two of the couples who'd been abducted in 1978. Yasushi Chimra and Fukiierre Hamamoto
and Carral Huik and Yuko Audo. Both couples had married and had children in North Korea.
The fifth victim was Hitomi Soa, who was kidnapped with her mother after a shopping trip.
North Korea denied taking Hati's mother, a claim that Hertomy refuted. Hitomi's husband, an 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 Chimra was 23 when he was
abducted and his mother suffered such severe anxiety after his disappearance that she became very sick.
She collapsed from high blood pressure caused by mental distress. 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 Yushi'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 6 months before Yushi's return. Mumi Yogatar's parents watched the
arrival of the abductees with a bittersweet feeling. They knew Meumi wouldn't be among them,
but they kept hoping to see her step off the plane. Mumi's daughter, Kim Hunyong, 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 Meumi had been carrying when she was abducted and a photo of her mother that had been taken when Mcumi
was in her 20s. Meumi's parents were shocked to discover that they had a granddaughter.
In the 2006 documentary Abduction: The Migumi Yakot Story, Sakiier remarked, "If North Korea was a normal country,
I'd go there and see Unyong and give her a hug. I'd do anything for her. But North Korea is an evil place."
Meumi's husband, Kim Yong Nam, had remarried in the years since Meumi's death. In 2006, he was permitted to have
some family members from South Korea visit. During this visit, he confirmed that
Mcumi 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 paring a script written by the North Korean
government. There were some inconsistencies when it came to Mcumi's supposed death.
Initially, North Korea said she died on March 13, 1993. But another abductee, Fukiierre
Hamamoto, said she'd lived next door to Mcumi for several months beginning in June 1994.
Fukiierre said that Mcumi had been suffering from severe depression and was not doing well.
Fellow abductee Karu Hawik said that Mcumi had separated from her husband in the spring of 1993.
About a year later, Kau had helped arrange for Mcumi to go to a psychiatric hospital to treat her depression.
Following these statements, North Korea amended its claim, asserting that Mcumi 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 3 months before
Fukia Hamamoto sightings of Mumi. In late September 2002, after the summit, Japanese investigators were
permitted to visit the hospital where Magumi was committed and subsequently took her life.
It was said that despite being in psychiatric care, Mcumi had removed her clothes and used them to hang herself.
The hospital produced a record of Mcumi's death, but part of the record was crossed out.
On November 15, 2004, 27 years to the day since Mcumi had been kidnapped, the Yogatar family was told to go to Japan's
Foreign Ministry office. There they were given more photos of Meumi from her time in North Korea and
an ern. Japanese investigators had brought back these items from a recent visit to North
Korea where they'd attempted to obtain more answers about the deceased abductees.
They explained that the ern contained Mcumi's cremated remains. Meumi 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 Meumi.
Remains that had been provided for Corral Matsuki proved to be false as well. Mcumi's parents were relieved by this
result, but also angered by the cruelty of being sent fake remains. The following year, it would be revealed
that the DNA analysis had been performed by a relatively junior faculty member of
Teo University's medical department. He had no prior experience in the analysis of cremated remains.
He described his tests as inconclusive and added that the specimens he'd been given were tiny, weighing 1 and 1/2 g at
most, and easily contaminated. He'd 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. Mcumi, 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. A staff member who'd worked there at the time tried to recall the spot where
Mcumi was buried and after looking in the area, they did find some human remains.
It was assumed these were meumis, 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. While 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, believe that Mcumi and other abductees said to have died are still
alive and are being hidden somewhere in North Korea. Kim Hyunhi, the former North Korean
agent who blew up Kal 858, has also said that she believes Mcumi is alive. Hyunhi, who was initially sentenced to
death for her crime, but was later pardoned, has advocated for the North Korean abductees.
She had heard of Mcumi's hospitalization for mental health, but said she was told
her condition was not severe. There have been reports from multiple sources that Meumi taught Japanese to
Supreme Leader Kim Jong- Ils sons, Kim Jong- Ch and Kim Jong- Nam, whose story is covered in episode 185 of Case File.
It's thought that if this is true, Magumi'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 Pongyang listed a woman with the Korean name Kimong Gong, who had the
same birth date as Meumi Yogatar. Reports later indicated that this woman was actually Meumi's daughter. It is
unclear why her birthday would be listed as her mother's. 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 Yasushi Chimra and Kauru Huika identified one of their
abductors as Shinuansu, an infamous North Korean spy also suspected of kidnapping Meumi Yokata.
Shin was apprehended by South Korean law enforcement in 2014 while traveling under a Japanese passport issued in the
name of Tadakihara. 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. As of 2026, the abduction issue remains a key sticking point between Japan and
North Korea, who continue to have no diplomatic ties. North Korea claims the matter is
settled, while Japan maintains that the issue still needs to be addressed. In March 2014, Chagaru and Sakiier
Yogatar traveled to the capital of Mongolia for a special purpose. The Japanese government had helped
organize the trip so that the Yogatars could finally meet Kimyong Mumi's now 26-year-old daughter.
Sakiier 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 Unyong resembled Meumi. Unyong 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 Magumi's
life or supposed death candidly. She has grown up in that country. Sakiierre said, "We weren't sure how
much of the truth she could tell us." Although meeting Unyong was a precious moment for the Yokotars, they also felt
grief that the person they wished to see most of all, Magumi, couldn't be there.
Sakiierre later told journalists that she had wondered privately if Mcumi was watching the reunion from a secret part
of the building, forbidden from joining her loved ones. 4 years later in April 2018, Chagaru
Yogata, now in his mid80s, was hospitalized for ill health. He died in 2020 at the age of 87.
The day before Meumi went missing was Chagaru's 45th birthday. Her gift to him was a turtle shell comb
to keep his messy hair tidy with Meumi instructing her father to look after himself as she handed it over.
From that moment, he carried the comb with him always and took it everywhere he went until his final days.
Sakiier Yokotar is now 90 years old and is still seeking answers for her daughter alongside her two sons.
In 1999, Sakiier wrote a book about Meumi titled North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter.
As of 2026, she is still pleading for Meumi's return and begging for the Japanese government to take action.
In an interview with the Japan Times, Sakiier said, "Everyone ages, but I never imagined spending my life in this
way. We could have lived happily if we were together. This is endless suffering."
In 2006, the Yogatars participated in a documentary about Meumi's abduction and the other abductees, which was called
Abduction: The Meumi Yogatar Story. Towards the end of the film, Sakiier wisfully described how she pictured a
life for Meumi 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.

Case 346: Megumi Yokota

When 13-year-old Megumi Yokota failed to return home from her regular badminton practice on November 15 1977, her parents immediately raised the alarm.

The police in Niigata, Japan, conducted one of the city’s largest ever investigations, but no trace of Megumi was ever found. Two decades later, the case took a shocking turn that would rock the entire nation of Japan and have geopolitical ramifications…

CREDITS Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Erin Munro Production & music – Mike Migas Audio editing – Anthony Telfer

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Brief Summary

Megumi Yokota was abducted by North Korean agents in 1977, leading to decades of search and eventual tragic revelations about her fate.

Key points

Mumi's Disappearance. Mumi goes missing after badminton practice, leaving her family frantic.
The Ransom Call. Sakiier receives a shocking call claiming to have Mumi, demanding ransom.
False Hope. A hoax call leads to a devastating realization for Mumi's family.
The Abduction of Hashi and Ko. A couple is violently abducted by four men on the beach, leading to a tense situation.
KAL 858 Explosion. A South Korean flight is bombed mid-air, killing all on board.
Kim Hyunhi's Confession. The North Korean agent reveals her role in the KAL 858 bombing after her capture.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

"She is all right. She will be back.".

Chagaru reassures his family about Mumi's safety.

10:37WatchJul 11, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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