Unsolved] Missing Campground Girl Case: Mother Reveals What She’s Been Telling Us

YamanashiDoshi Village, Minamitsuru-gun, Yamanashi Prefecture September 21, 2007

The defendant did not admit to the crime, but said, “I wonder how much of my words were conveyed to the defendant. The defendant did not admit to the crime and did not show remorse. He had been pestering his lawyer, saying he was not satisfied with the verdict. But with this verdict, there will finally be a break.

So says Tomoko, 38, the mother of Misaki Ogura, 9, who went missing from a campground in Yamanashi in September 2007. On December 17, 2009, the Chiba District Court ruled in a defamation case against a man who wrote on his blog about Misaki’s case that her parents were involved in human trafficking. Tomoko also visited the district court and the man was sentenced to one year and six months in prison, with four years suspended.

Two years have passed since the incident occurred. Although the number of information provided to the police has been decreasing, Tomoko says that she still receives a constant stream of information on her SNS and website.

I think many people hesitate to call the police because they are worried about the reliability of the information,” she said. Since the launch of the website in October 2008, we have received about 200 tips from people who have seen a child who looks like her. I would be happy if you could send me the information, even if it is different. We immediately share the information we receive with the police, and they also check the security camera footage near the place where the information was received. We also continue to distribute fliers to nearby stores,” said Tomoko.

In some of the past kidnapping cases, the perpetrators moved from place to place with the children they took. Tomoko believes that Misaki is still living somewhere in Japan, and the police are of the same opinion.

We believe that Misaki will definitely be able to come home and live with a smile on her face, and we want to tell her to hang in there a little longer because we will find her.

We can only hope for a speedy reunion between father and daughter.