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Dark new Netflix true crime doc explores father who tried to track down missing daughter in Japan
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A new Netflix documentary shares the disturbing story of a British woman who went missing in Japan.
The trailer for Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case opens up with her father Tim.
He recalls the moment his daughter Lucie Blackman went missing while living out in Tokyo in 2000.
Tim said: "I was sitting in the garden at home, and I got a telephone call to say that my daughter, Lucie, had gone missing.
"She was out working in Japan.
"I was immediately thinking, 'Well, there must be some rational explanation.'
"That feeling of complete blind panic just crashes in on you."
Lucie, who was 21, had moved out to Tokyo for a year of exploration.
Taking up work as a hostess at a bar, she was last seen leaving the establishment.
An international investigation followed in the wake of her disappearance.
The documentary is told from the perspective of those who were involved in the investigation and from her father.
The day after Lucie's disappearance, her friend Louise Philips received a phone call from a man claiming that Lucie had joined a cult.
He said that she would never be seen again.
The stakes were now raised, with Tim hosting a press conference in Tokyo pleading for information and then Prime Minister Tony Blair promising to raise the issue with Japan at the G8 summit.
During the seven month search, a letter arrived supposedly from Lucie.
It read: "I am doing what I want to do so please leave me alone."
It was quickly dismissed as fake.
In 2001, body parts were discovered buried in a cave near a beach.
These body parts were identified as Lucie's.
The cave in which the remains were found was close to the home of Korean-Japanese businessman Joji Obara.
He would be arrested in April 2001 and put on trial for her abduction, rape resulting in death and disposal of the body.
During his 2002 trial, he would also be charged with the killing of an Australian woman killed in 1992 and raping eight other women.
In 2007, he would be cleared of all charges related to Lucie's death but was sentenced to life imprisonment for the other crimes of which he was accused.
Tim believes his daughter was 'robbed of justice'.
The following year, after an appeal from prosecutors, Obara was convicted of abducting Lucie.
Tokyo's high court ruled that there was not enough evidence to convict him for murder, but found him guilty of mutilating her body.
Topics: Netflix, True Crime, TV and Film
