On July 26, the newest true crime documentary on Netflix is set to premiere. It revisits the tragic tale of Lucie Blackman. The series, “Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case,” aims to decipher the complex circumstances surrounding the British woman’s murder and disappearance.
Lucie Blackman: Who was she?
When she was raped and killed, 21-year-old Lucie was a hostess at Tokyo’s Casablancas nightclub. The Japanese police initially didn’t seem concerned, even speculating to Lucie Blackman’s father that she might have eloped to Bali with a new boyfriend, something they claimed was common among hostesses.
In the year 2000, Lucie Blackman and her friend Louise Phillips decided to leave their careers in the UK and take an exhilarating trip to Japan, which would change their lives forever. They exchanged their jobs as British Airways flight attendants for a more laid-back position at a pub in the renowned Roppongi district after arriving in Tokyo with a 90-day visa in May. The two friends took on the role of hostesses as part of their job, which occasionally involved going on paid dates, or “dhan” in Japanese, in addition to serving drinks. Lucie Blackman went on one of these compensated dates with a client on July 1, 2000.
Lucie Blackman failed to come back to her house and vanished without a trace. This upsetting turn of events sparked a massive global missing persons campaign as worried people all over the world banded together in the hopeless search to find her.
Lucie Blackman’s body was found in a seaside cave in a tiny fishing village seven months after she mysteriously vanished. The location was shockingly close to one of the residences owned by Joji Obara, a man suspected of being involved in the case, and was only an hour’s drive from Tokyo.
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