Nicola Furlong: A Life Worth More

[00:00:17] Hey everyone, my name is Nikki Young and this is Serial Napper, an international true crime podcast. I'm back with another true crime story to lull you to sleep or perhaps to give you nightmares. I cannot even begin to express to you how much tonight's story enrages

[00:00:36] me. That's really the only word I can think of. All of the cases that I cover are heartbreaking and tragic, but this story in particular, it makes my blood boil and I haven't been

[00:00:49] able to stop thinking about it. A trigger warning here that I will be talking about sexual assault and you might find some of the things said particularly disturbing. Listener discretion is advised, but if you're able to, Nikola Furlong's story is one that

[00:01:07] needs to be heard all around the world. And soon, you'll find out why. Nikola Furlong was a 21-year-old Dublin City University student who was studying university in Japan as part of an exchange program. In May of 2012, she enjoyed a night out at a Nicki Minaj concert

[00:01:27] with one of her girlfriends. When the concert was over, they planned to continue their night bar hopping until the first train arrived in the morning to take them home. While standing outside of the train station, they encountered two American men and they were happy to meet

[00:01:45] other foreigners who could also speak English. They decided to head to a bar together and share some drinks. The rest of the evening was a blur as the last thing that Nikola's friend would remember was taking a shot of tequila before blacking out, coming in and

[00:02:03] out of consciousness. They were taken to a nearby hotel where the men separated the two women. A few hours later, Nikola Furlong would be discovered strangled to death inside of one of the hotel rooms. With Nikola's friend not having much memory from the evening and

[00:02:21] the two American men denying any wrongdoing, it was lucky that there would be surveillance footage and recorded audio of some of the events that went down that night. And when you learn what was uncovered and what happened to the two American men, it will make you

[00:02:38] sick to your stomach. So let's jump right in. Nikola was born on December 17th, 1990 to her parents Andrew and Angela Furlong. She would have two baby sisters, Andrea who was three years younger and Hannah who was nine years younger, and she was really close

[00:02:58] to both of them. Nikola grew up living in Wexford, Ireland, and she's been described by her loving family as quote, warm, generous, and a stunning person who always had time for her family and other people. She was your typical young woman. She loved glamour,

[00:03:17] fashion, and everything pink. She also loved her long-term boyfriend, Danny, who was said to treat her like the absolute princess she was. After graduating from high school, Nikola enrolled as a student at Dublin City University where she was to study business and Japanese,

[00:03:36] which she really enjoyed learning. When an opportunity came up to continue her studies abroad, her father suggested she go to Japan since she enjoyed taking the language course so much. In 2011, she did exactly that. At 21 years old, Nikola moved to Japan to study

[00:03:56] as part of their exchange program with the Takasaki City University of Economics. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and she just had to take it, even though it meant being away from her friends, her family, and her boyfriend for a full year. It was a huge

[00:04:16] adjustment, one that she may have underestimated. At first, she really struggled to find her way living in Japan, and as someone who lived there for four years, trust me when I say it is a completely different world over there. It's incredible if you're open to new experiences

[00:04:36] and can sort of fit in with the rest of the crowd, but it is a challenge to adjust to some of the cultural norms. And because it's a society built for introverts, which is probably

[00:04:48] why I loved it so much, it can be really isolating. All that to say, Nikola didn't exactly enjoy her time living in Japan. The area she was residing in is in Gunma Prefecture, which is stunning, but it is on the outskirts, meaning it's more traditional and fewer people

[00:05:08] living there speak English. Beyond that, the time that she spent missing her family, it kind of overshadowed much of the experience that Japan provided. She was very much looking forward to finishing up her year in the exchange program and then getting back home to Ireland.

[00:05:28] In May of 2012, Nikola was just a couple of months away from returning back to Ireland, about 10 weeks out. She was keeping busy to help the time pass quickly. She made plans with a friend to attend a Nicki Minaj concert that was taking place in Tokyo. It would have

[00:05:46] been about a two-hour trip by Shinkansen or the bullet train. The plan was to go to the concert and then to stay out the rest of the night in the city bar hopping. They would catch the first train back to Gunma in the morning. So on May 23, 2012, Nikola

[00:06:05] and her friend, who has not been identified in the media in order to protect her because she was also a victim, they set out into the city. They went to see Nicki Minaj and

[00:06:16] they had a blast and then they walked back to the train station. The plan was to go out and have some fun bar hopping, but they weren't exactly sure where they should go first. While

[00:06:28] they were looking at the transit map and making plans, they were approached by two American men who spoke English. 19-year-old Richard Hines and 23-year-old James Jamari Blackston. The men explained to the ladies that they were visiting Japan from the States. Richard

[00:06:46] was from Memphis, Tennessee, and he was there working as a professional musician while James flew in from LA and he was there on tour as a professional dancer. Because they were both familiar with the nightlife in the city, they offered to show the two young women around

[00:07:03] Shibuya, which is filled with bars that are open all night. Nikola and her friend thought that they seemed friendly enough, so they agreed and they went with them. On the way over, Richard and James let the ladies know that they have two rooms booked and paid for

[00:07:20] at the Kyo Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku. They're free to crash in one of the rooms if they want to. Nikola and her friend, they decline, saying that they'd be fine to stay up and take the train back in the morning. They weren't interested in anything romantic either.

[00:07:37] They get to Shibuya and they decide to visit the Scramble Bar. Nikola and her friend buy the first round of drinks. Richard and James buy the second round, shots of tequila. For some people, tequila knocks them right on their ass, but Nikola's friend would later

[00:07:54] report that this shot of tequila, it hit her much differently than usual. One minute she was sitting there enjoying the drinks and conversation, and the next she was blacked out. She would say that it would be hours until she finally regained consciousness and

[00:08:12] full control over her autonomy again. Just before 1am, security footage from a taxi would show the two men putting the two heavily intoxicated females into the back of the car before getting

[00:08:25] in and telling the driver to take them to the Kyo Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku. It was about a 10-15 minute drive away. When they arrive at the hotel, the men see that Nikola and

[00:08:37] her friend, they're struggling to get out of the cab and to walk. So they ask the hotel for two wheelchairs to assist them. Nikola is put in one wheelchair and her friend in the other, and then they are wheeled into the lobby. Security cameras would show the

[00:08:55] two men pushing these wheelchairs, with the women sitting in them slumped over, passed out. The hotel staff should have asked questions, but they didn't. They stood back and even assisted the men with the unconscious women. Richard took Nikola up to his hotel room,

[00:09:14] while James takes her friend up to his. Now we don't know exactly what happened in these hotel rooms, but we do know that it was unconsensual, violent, pervasive, and in one room, it was

[00:09:27] fatal. At approximately 3.20am, a noise complaint was called in and the hotel manager on duty went to room 1427 to investigate. When no one answered the door, the manager entered the hotel room, and they discover Nikola Furlong lying on the floor. Her face was pale and

[00:09:48] her lips were blue. It didn't appear like she was breathing. Emergency services were called and both Nikola and her friend, who was found in another room, they were transported to the hospital. Nikola Furlong never regained consciousness, and she was pronounced dead

[00:10:05] at the hospital. Her father would recall the moment that he learned of the news. He said quote, The guards called to my house at 7.50am on the 24th of May 2012. I didn't know what

[00:10:18] they wanted, but I invited him into the kitchen. When I was asked if I was the father of Nikola Furlong, I said, don't tell me she's been in an accident. The guard then replied, no,

[00:10:31] it's far worse than that. She's dead. I remember talking to the guard who delivered the news to me, and he said it was one of the most horrendous things he ever had to do during his career. Nikola wasn't the only victim that evening. Her friend, who had attended

[00:10:48] the Nicki Minaj concert with her, had also been brought back to the hotel and taken to a suite where she was sexually assaulted. It wasn't difficult for the police to trace back who had done this to these two young ladies. The hotel rooms were registered under

[00:11:04] the names of 19-year-old Richard Hines and 23-year-old James Blackston, the two American men that they had been at the bar with that night. Both men were arrested at the hotel and then brought into the police station for questioning. Initially, they were charged

[00:11:20] with quasi-forcible indecency, which in Japan means quote, a person who commits sexual intercourse with a person by taking advantage of a loss of consciousness or inability to resist, or by causing a loss of consciousness or inability to resist. It was suspected that both Richard

[00:11:41] Hines and James Blackston had drugged the two young women and then brought them back to their hotel rooms and sexually assaulted them. Meanwhile, an autopsy was being conducted on Nicola Furlong's body to determine how she died. The results came back mid-June, and they were shocking.

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[00:13:13] most likely with an object, something soft, perhaps a towel. It was added that Nicola likely didn't die quickly and it would have taken minutes. She would have died in great distress, according to the professor. With this new information, the Tokyo Metropolitan

[00:13:31] Police Department arrested Richard Hines once again, this time for murder. Richard Hines was 19 years old when he was arrested. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, he was visiting Japan as part of his work as a Christian musician. Actually, he was the music director at his

[00:13:49] local church back home in Memphis. After graduating from Central High School Memphis the year prior, he received the opportunity of a lifetime, the chance to join his older brother and Japanese American hip-hop star A.I. on his tour. They had just played in Tokyo the night prior

[00:14:08] to the Nicki Minaj concert that Nicola and her friend had attended. He was set to return back to Memphis, where he was known within the Christian music space, in June, around the same time that Nicola had planned to return back to Ireland. Now, he wouldn't be leaving

[00:14:26] Japan anytime soon because the police were looking directly at him for the rape and murder of Nicola Furlong. Richard Hines would deny purposely killing Nicola. He claimed that the two went up to his hotel room, where they started to get intimate. Then, they started

[00:14:45] to have rough sex and as part of that, he said he pressed her neck with his hands, but he claimed that he wasn't trying to kill her. If she died as a result, it was completely

[00:14:56] unintentional, according to Hines. He pled not guilty. However, when this went to trial in March of 2013, more details about the two men's sinister intentions that evening with Nicola and her friend would be revealed. The prosecution alleged that on the night

[00:15:15] in question, Hines and Blackston drugged Nicola and her friend with the intention of bringing them back to their hotel rooms and then sexually assaulting them. And this is when she was strangled to death with something soft, like a towel. The defense argued that Nicola actually

[00:15:32] died from a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol that she took herself. According to Professor Yoshida, who performed Nicola's autopsy, she had scratch marks on her neck, indicating that she had tried to fight back as she was being strangled. Yoshida claimed

[00:15:52] that she would have died a very slow and painful death, as it takes several minutes to fully strangle someone to the point of dying. Yoshida also said that there was nothing found to suggest that drugs or alcohol were the reason for her death. Nicola's friend, who had attended

[00:16:10] the concert with her that night, and was also allegedly sexually assaulted in another room by Hines' friend, James Blackston, she would testify at the trial by phone. She could recall most of the events leading up to taking that shot of tequila with Nicola and the two

[00:16:28] other men at the bar in Shibuya. She spoke of how the men offered to take them back to their hotel room in Shinjuku, and they declined because both of them said they had a boyfriend.

[00:16:40] She recalled how the men bought them a shot of tequila, and after taking it, she pretty much blacked out. She didn't regain consciousness until she woke up in the hospital room the following day. Now this was not a typical experience for this unidentified woman, who

[00:16:58] said that she had never blacked out like that after having a shot of tequila. She believed that her drink had been spiked, and that she had been sexually assaulted by James Blackston. The defense painted Richard Hines like an honest and decent man who simply wanted to

[00:17:16] help these two young ladies get to a safe space, like their hotel room, so that they could sleep off the alcohol. But a surveillance recording from the cab ride from the bar in Shibuya to the hotel room in Shinjuku, it would paint a completely different picture.

[00:17:34] Richard Hines and his partner James Blackston clearly had no idea that they were being recorded in the back of the taxi because what it showed was appalling. Nicola and her friend could be seen slumped over in the taxi. They appeared to be unconscious. Then Hines can be heard

[00:17:55] saying quote, these bitches fell into our lap. We gotta keep them fucked up. We are going to fuck them. And then they exchange fist bumps. How lucky are we to have that recording because otherwise it would have been his word against hers and we all know

[00:18:14] how that can play out. Sex assault cases are the most difficult to prosecute because a lot of time there just isn't any evidence and so it's one person's story against the other. But this recording, it really showed their true intention. They didn't care about

[00:18:30] getting them home safely. They didn't care that the women were clearly too incapacitated to consent to anything. They wanted one thing only and they didn't care who they hurt to get it. Even more shocking, James Blackston was recorded sexually assaulting Nicola's

[00:18:47] friend in the back of that taxi before assaulting her again in his hotel room. This wasn't even his first time. In addition to being charged for raping Nicola's friend, he would be prosecuted for sexually assaulting another young woman in Japan about a month prior to

[00:19:06] this incident. In the same manner, he bought her a shot of tequila which had been spiked and then assaulted her when she became incapacitated. But more on James Blackston later. The next recording played at trial was from the hotel lobby, which showed the men getting the wheelchairs

[00:19:25] from the hotel staff and putting the blacked out women in them. The women are shown slumped over as they are wheeled across the lobby and then up to the suites. It's really nauseating

[00:19:38] when you think about how the hotel staff actually helped these men get the women to their rooms without asking any questions. Richard Hines would explain these videos away, claiming that it was just harmless banter between two guys. He claimed he and Blackston were standing

[00:19:57] outside the train station when Nicola and her friend approached them saying that they wanted to party. He tried painting Nicola like a total party girl who enjoyed getting blacked out drunk and he tried to destroy any credibility that she had. He also admitted

[00:20:15] that he put his hands on Nicola's throat, but he said that he didn't press very hard and he had no intention of killing her. He claimed that in the hotel room, Nicola woke

[00:20:26] up and she demanded rough sex with him and she became angry when he tried to refuse. So he put his hands around her neck, but only for 30 seconds or so. When given the

[00:20:38] opportunity to speak at trial, he said, quote, in my short little life, I have never hurt anyone physically or verbally. Nicola's family were in attendance during the trial and they had to sit through all of the horrific details of what happened to her. They would

[00:20:55] give a victim impact statement and in it, they asked the judge for the gravest possible punishment. But there was a problem. Richard Hines, he was 19 years old when he sexually assaulted and killed Nicola Furlong. In Japan, he was considered a minor and there is a huge

[00:21:15] difference between sentencing a minor compared to an adult. Thankfully, that has since changed in Japan and 19 year olds are now considered adults when it comes to violent crimes. But Richard Hines, he completely lucked out and the judge's hands, they were tied. He was

[00:21:34] sentenced to only 5 to 10 years in prison. Justice most certainly was not served that day. Because he never showed any remorse for his actions, he was ordered to serve the full length of time, 10 years, in Fuchu Prison, which is located just outside of Tokyo. According

[00:21:52] to Japanese authorities, he was classed as a category 3 prisoner, which means that he had only a moderate expectation of rehabilitation back into society. The Furlongs attempted to sue the Kyo Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku for the role that they played. They alleged that

[00:22:11] hotel staff broke Japanese law by not confirming if Nicola was a registered guest and for allowing the men to bring the women up to their rooms in wheelchairs while they were passed out. I wasn't able to find any information as to whether or not this lawsuit was successful,

[00:22:29] but in my opinion, they absolutely hold some responsibility for what happened here. They could have saved both women from what happened in that hotel room if they had bothered to ask any questions, like if they were okay or if they had any ID, if they were supposed

[00:22:47] to be staying at the hotel. In November of 2022, Richard Hines was released after serving the full 10 years and he was deported back to his family in Memphis, Tennessee. He is already back to playing Christian music

[00:23:02] and touring. Recently, he shared a video of himself playing piano on social media as part of an announcement that he's going to start touring again. He even went on a local radio show where he talked about his future in music saying quote,

[00:23:19] I am a pianist, musician, traveling musician, and I've done tours and recorded with lots of artists around the Memphis area and outside of the country as well. I'm about to get ready to go on tour again with the artist Shawn 2 Miles. Recently, I've been doing

[00:23:36] a lot of traveling and it's been eye-opening in the sense that manifesting dreams, whatever vision, whatever direction that I have in trying to understand completely whatever God has and whatever reason that I have as well. The most important thing in traveling is to

[00:23:51] meet new people and to make the most of the opportunities that are always in front of you. He completely forgot to mention that the reason he had been traveling and he had taken a break

[00:24:03] from music for so long was because he was actually sitting in a Japanese prison for the rape and murder of a young Irish woman. But that's just a minor detail, I guess. As for his partner in crime, James Blackston, who was convicted of sexually assaulting Nicola's

[00:24:20] friend that evening as well as another young woman in a similar fashion just a month prior, well, he's living his best life a free man back in America. He had been sentenced to three years hard labor back in 2013, but he was released in 2015 and returned to the states

[00:24:38] where he continues to work as a professional dancer. And he got married because unfortunately there will always be women who can look past the fact that their men are total predators. But what a lucky lady she is.

[00:24:54] So how much is a life worth? Apparently for Richard Hines, it's worth exactly 10 years and then it's time to move on. He's now free despite the fact that he has never shown any remorse for what he did. And he's trying to relaunch his music career. He's ditched

[00:25:13] the prison stripes and he's picked up the Bible. His social media profiles reference God and they feature photos of him playing keyboard in his local church. One post says, quote, who's in charge of second chances?

[00:25:28] But for Nicola Furlong's friends and family, there are no second chances. They will never see her finally graduate from university, get married, have children. She is forever 21 to them, stuck in the past and tied to this horrific murder. Her bedroom back home

[00:25:49] in Ireland? It remains untouched. Her father has said to media there's not a thing has been changed in her room. Every time I pass it, I can see her sitting on her bed and saying,

[00:25:59] Hi dad, I Hoover it once a week and I like the candles for her every night. Her bedroom is her bedroom and it'll remain like that until I'm no longer in this house.

[00:26:12] That's it for me tonight. If you want to reach out, you can find me on Facebook at Serial Napper. Did you know I also have a Serial Napper true crime discussion group? It's called

[00:26:22] Serial Society and I'll have the link in my show notes. I'd love to chat with you about this case specifically and all other cases that I cover. You can find my audio on Apple

[00:26:33] or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. I post all of my episodes in video format over on YouTube, so go check it out. And if you're watching on YouTube, I would love

[00:26:42] if you can give me a thumbs up and subscribe. Every little bit helps. I'm over on X, formerly known as Twitter at Serial underscore Napper, and I post things on TikTok. Serial Napper Nick and that's all one word. Until next time, sweet dreams, stay kind, especially in the

[00:27:01] comments. Bye.