Japan - Tiffany Rain Fordham, Canadian hostess/teacher, Sept. 1997

[dotr]

Hostess is the second blonde lost in Tokyo
"Miss Fordham, daughter of Kelly Jay, the Canadian songwriter whose song Oh, What a Feeling was a hit in the Seventies, disappeared after getting into a seventh floor lift at a club in September 1997. Jaye Smith-Baxter, a close family friend, said Miss Fordham, also a hostess, had been invited to a club by a known member of the Yakuza that night. Her fiancé was with her but they argued and he left to go down in the lift to the lobby. Miss Fordham was not seen again.

Two weeks later the Yakuza member disappeared, leaving his wife and children. Mrs Smith-Baxter said yesterday: "He abducted her. She was beautiful with blonde hair and blue eyes, dimples. She was his meal ticket and he saw it. That's why I believe she is still alive. She was worth so much to him. I do believe she is still alive and has probably been sold on four or five times by now. She has just turned 30, her looks will be fading. Maybe she is not worth so much to him now."
"She's smart, sassy and she knows how to handle herself. She's smart enough to seize an opportunity to get away and I believe she will." She said Miss Fordham's father, a former member of the band Crowbar, preferred to believe that his daughter had decided to join a cult, she said. But there was no evidence of that. She said: "Since Tiffany disappeared, we have learned of seven white women who disappeared in Tokyo over the past five years. It's happening all the time."

 

[dotr]

Red-light alert in Tokyo
April 7, 2018
"Forget the geisha. The rich man's woman of choice in modern-day Japan is the foreign hostess, preferably a blonde who drapes herself in a Moschino skirt, parades through downtown Tokyo in Prada shoes and wears the most expensive jewellery she can talk a Japanese businessman into buying.

But the lucrative world of bar hostesses, where Western women can make thousands of dollars a week pouring $50 shots of Scotch for Japanese men, can also become a young woman's voyage into the dark side of Japan's sex culture.

In the neon-lit hostess bars, there are men who indulge school-girl fetishes and some who search out partners for rape fantasies (commonplace in Japan's industry) -- or perhaps, police now fear, indulge in real-life violence and murder.

At least two foreign hostesses, one of them Canadian, have gone missing in the past three years. But it's possible other women have disappeared without being noticed. Their families often don't know they are working in the bars, and the bars don't keep close tabs on the women, who are usually illegal workers without visas."

"Ms. Blackman, a former airline attendant, was not the first Westerner to disappear from the bar district. Tiffanny Rain Fordham, of Calgary, disappeared from the same area three years ago. There are no clues to explain what happened to Ms. Fordham, daughter of Kelly Fordham, a rock musician who wrote Oh, What A Feeling.

"We haven't heard anything new from anyone," a member of the family said by e-mail this week. Her family frequently runs classified ads in Japanese newspapers appealing for her to call home.

In Tokyo, a Canadian embassy official said in an interview that police have found no link between Ms. Fordham and Mr. Obara. Images of Ms. Fordham have not been discovered among the many videotapes linked to Mr. Obara, police have told the embassy.

Until the past few months, the sordid side of the hostess-bar scene largely escaped public scrutiny. But that changed after the protests of the Blackman family, who flew to Tokyo repeatedly to press Japanese authorities into putting more police on the search. As a result, Roppongi is under a microscope as never before and what has come to light is chilling.

Two years ago, the mutilated body of a Chinese bar hostess was discovered, stuffed into a plastic bag. Like most such cases, her death received little follow-up investigation or scrutiny. Many women don't report attacks against them because they fear retaliation from criminal gangs, or because they fear deportation if they are working without proper papers.

"It's a scary world," said a Canadian woman whose friends worked the bar district. "But you can make a lot of money and pay all your expenses in a city where a coffee costs $5. That's why girls do it."

"Ms. Fordham's father, who performs under the name Kelly Jay, has said he believes his daughter, who would now be 30, was kidnapped and enslaved in an international sex ring that trades in Western women. That subject is a theme in many of Japan's hard-core pornographic videos, and there are rumours that this has long been part of the subculture of Roppongi, which is controlled by Japanese gangs involved in prostitution.

Bar hostesses say they are not prostitutes, and most prefer to see themselves as modern versions of geisha, Japanese women who were educated in the arts of conversation and the entertaining of rich patrons in teahouses.

The Canadian embassy advises against young women going to Japan to work as hostesses, emphasizing that no visas are available for such an occupation. "It's just not a good idea," an official said."

 

[dotr]

Posting this thread in honour of Tiffany's father.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/fordham-1.5185157
Jun 21, 2019

Kelly Jay Fordham, the Canadian singer-songwriter whose 1971 hit Oh What a Feeling became the first song to reap the rewards of the Cancon era, has died at 77.

The member of rock band Crowbar passed away at a Calgary hospital early Friday after suffering a massive stroke on June 9 that permanently affected the left side of his brain, his son Hank Fordham confirmed.

The Hamilton rock act was originally hired by Ronnie Hawkins after the members of his previous supporting act, the Band, split off to start their own career."

 

[CastlesBurning]

Bumping for Tiffany - it's now been over 24 years without answers.

 

[dotr]

So much tragedy for one family, truly hoping that Tiffany is located soon.
Kelly Jay Fordham, Cancon pioneer and keyboardist for Crowbar, dies at 77
2019 rbbm.
''Fordham's reputation as a showman even captured the attention of Lennon. As Crowbar recorded their 1972 album "Heavy Duty" in New York they were approached by the former Beatle who was recording in the studio next door, Bernardi recalled.

After a friendly conversation about live shows, Lennon retreated to his workspace, but sent over an order of sushi for each band member.

Fordham also found support in a young Margaret Trudeau who helped secure Crowbar a spot as the opener for her husband's re-election campaign rallies.

In the early 1980s, Fordham switched gears to host the overnight radio show on Toronto's CHUM-FM -- but his later years were beset by tragedy.

His daughter Tiffany Rain Fordham made international headlines when she disappeared in Tokyo's club district in 1997. She was never found.

In 2006, the mother of his three children, Katherine Marsden, was killed in a car accident, and six years later Tami Jean, his wife of 15 years, died from heart disease.

Fordham fell on financial hard times in the years that followed as he suffered various medical and psychiatric issues, including Parkinson's disease, diabetes and syllogomania, a hoarding disorder.

The 2013 TV series "Hoarding: Buried Alive" dedicated an episode to Fordham at his Calgary home. Two years later, he clashed with local officials who threatened to tow an old tour bus off his property at his expense.''

 

[dotr]

2000
Where Have They Gone? In Japan, another Western woman is missing -- and Japanese society is doing some soul-searching
''Shingo Takahashi, a well-known Japanese criminologist who has written several books on Japanese cults and psychopaths, believes a serial killer who preys on attractive Western women is responsible.
Takahashi theorizes that Canadian Tiffany Fordham fell prey to a murderer in 1997. Fordham disappeared while traveling to her job at a Roppongi hostess club and hasn't been seen since, even though her friends began an extensive media crusade to find her.''

''Tim Blackman, Lucie's father, agrees with Takahashi. He and his wife, Jane, came to Tokyo to mount a high-profile campaign to find their daughter. They have offered a $150,000 reward, and pictures of the blond Blackman in a black cocktail dress have been plastered across Tokyo''

"Lucie was kidnapped by a lone man who took a shine to a beautiful, blue-eyed blonde and simply decided to keep her for himself," said Blackman.

Last Thursday, police arrested their first suspect -- Joji Orihara, a 48-year-old president of a Tokyo real estate company. Investigators say Orihara, who is under arrest in connection with the sexual assault of a Canadian woman four years ago, frequents foreign hostess clubs in Roppongi, uses false names and drugs women with sleeping pills.

A man fitting Orihara's description spent three hours chatting with Blackman in late June, and the alleged Canadian victim said he told her "Let's go and see the ocean," the same line used on Blackman. Orihara denies all charges.

Meanwhile, many Asian and Western hostesses are taking precautions that they didn't before.

"They now want to know who their customers are," said Estelle Viskovish, co-owner of Sin Den, a Tokyo beauty salon frequented by many hostesses. "They are not so quick to go for rides with customers anymore."

 

[dotr]

2000
Serial killer may be after Western women
''Shingo Takahashi, who has written extensively about Japanese cults and psychopaths, profiled the man who apparently kidnapped Lucie — and he believes the same man may be responsible for the disappearance of as many as seven other Western women in the past five years.

Takahashi said the man probably acts alone, is obsessed with Western women and probably does not have a steady job, although he is well-dressed and has enough money to cruise the bars, strip joints and hostess bars of Roppongi.

“He would have been around Lucie before,” Takahashi said. “He was possibly a customer or part of her surroundings — a stalker.”

Toshihiko Mii, deputy superintendent at Azabu Police Station, which is coordinating the investigation into Blackman’s disappearance, said there are “no significant leads” in the case, but tacitly admitted his team is looking into the possibility that they are hunting a serial killer.

“We refuse to rule out anything in this investigation,” he said.

Blackman, a blonde and blue-eyed former British Airways flight attendant from Sevenoaks in Kent, was working as a hostess in the Casablanca club before disappearing on July 1.

That evening, she called her roommate, Louise Phillips, and told her she was going to the beach with a customer. She later phoned Phillips to say she would be back soon. No one has heard from her since.

The next day, a man called Phillips and told her in broken English that she would never see her friend again. The man said he was keeping Lucie, adding: “This is the last time you are going to hear about Lucie. This is goodbye.”

He also said she had joined a “newly risen religion” and “is doing fine.”

''Hostesses working in Roppongi’s clubs say that as many as seven other women have disappeared in the last five years. Tokyo police admit that figure is plausible, although they only have the case of Canadian Tiffany Fordham and the Blackman investigation still open.''

 

[holmes007]

I watched the show about Blackman on Netflix before hearing about this case and immediately felt they were connected. I knew Kelly Jay some years ago in Hamilton. (Actually it's not well known, but he also wrote a song with Alice Cooper for Welcome to my Nightmare, and received a gold album for it). Recently I looked him up only to discover this case, and that sadly, he'd passed. I'd been away for years overseas, and ironically living in Tokushima, Japan at the time of Tiffany's disappearance. From my experience, having met my wife in Ropongi years earlier, (who's father is missing a finger), is that any Yakuza involved in her murder, would disappear...at the hands of other Yakuza. That could explain the Yakuza on the elevator. They don't normally condone this kind of conduct. It's not honorable. It's true that Japanese men have what we might consider bizarre sexual fantasies by our standards, but they tend to remain just fantasies...though sometimes drunks act up. But not often. I've heard stories from foreign hostesses when I lived in a "gaijin house" but most were funny. I tend to think it was a serial killer and possibly the one who took Blackman. Wish I'd known about this at the time because I had friends on the National Police force.

 

[dotr]

I watched the show about Blackman on Netflix before hearing about this case and immediately felt they were connected. I knew Kelly Jay some years ago in Hamilton. (Actually it's not well known, but he also wrote a song with Alice Cooper for Welcome to my Nightmare, and received a gold album for it). Recently I looked him up only to discover this case, and that sadly, he'd passed. I'd been away for years overseas, and ironically living in Tokushima, Japan at the time of Tiffany's disappearance. From my experience, having met my wife in Ropongi years earlier, (who's father is missing a finger), is that any Yakuza involved in her murder, would disappear...at the hands of other Yakuza. That could explain the Yakuza on the elevator. They don't normally condone this kind of conduct. It's not honorable. It's true that Japanese men have what we might consider bizarre sexual fantasies by our standards, but they tend to remain just fantasies...though sometimes drunks act up. But not often. I've heard stories from foreign hostesses when I lived in a "gaijin house" but most were funny. I tend to think it was a serial killer and possibly the one who took Blackman. Wish I'd known about this at the time because I had friends on the National Police force.

Welcome to Ws@holmes007!
Crowbar was a great band, saw them many times and was surprised when i started this thread to learn that the missing woman was his daughter.
Also i too recently watched the Netflix doc about Lucy and ultimately was impressed with the Japanese LE, especially when they visited with her family in the UK.
Adding a link to her thread in case you are interested and also another one for a really intriguing case..

GUILTY - Japan - Carita Ridgway, Lucie Blackman, both 21, raped & murdered, 1992 & 2000

:mad: I found this story while looking up another .it happened in 2001 but if you read a few links it shows that the man accused of the murder may have been raping and murdering young women for years ,one link says it may be as many as 400 rapes I hope he is locked away for life...

www.websleuths.com

Japan - Miyazawa family of 4 murdered, Setagaya, Tokyo, 30 Dec 2000 #2

I know the theory seems to be that the killer is no longer in Japan. But I was just reading information about Satoshi Kirishima, a Japanese terrorist & criminal who had been hiding in Japan since 1975. He was found only because he confessed. So, I guess it is possible that a highly-wanted...

www.websleuths.com