Less than twenty-four hours after her death, Nobuharu Minato's brother called to tell him that Furuta appeared to be dead. Afraid of being caught for murder, they wrapped her body in blankets and shoved it into a travel bag. They then put her body in a 55-gallon (208 liters) drum and filled it with wet concrete. Around 8:00 pm, they loaded and eventually disposed the drum into a cement truck in Kōtō, Tokyo.[6]
On 23 January, 1989, Hiroshi Miyano and Jō Ogura were arrested for the gang-rape of the 19-year-old woman who they had kidnapped in December. On 29 March, two police officers came to interrogate them, as women's underwear had been found at their addresses. During the interrogation, one of the officers led Miyano into thinking he knew of Furuta's murder. Thinking that Jō Ogura had confessed to the crime, Miyano told the police where to find Furuta's body. The police were initially puzzled by the confession, as they had been talking about the murder of another woman and her seven-year-old son that had occurred nine days prior to Furuta's abduction. That case remains unsolved to this day.
The police found the drum containing Furuta's body the following day. She was identified via fingerprints. On 1 April, 1989, Jō Ogura was arrested for another sexual assault, and subsequently re-arrested for murder. The arrest of Yasushi Watanabe, Nobuharu Minato, and Minato's brother followed