The body of Nicola Furlong, an Irish exchange student, was found in a hotel room in Tokyo, Japan, hours after she and a friend returned from a Nicki Minaj concert early Thursday morning. Two men whom the women met at the concert are being held by police for questioning and were charged with quasi forcible indecency, the Irish Independent reports.
Furlong, a 21-year-old student at Dublin City University, had been studying abroad at the Takasaki City University of Economics, located 60 miles outside of Tokyo. On Wednesday night, she and a friend met two men who were attending the same Nicki Minaj concert in Tokyo. Afterward, all four were seen returning in a cab to the Keio Plaza hotel in Tokyo.
A little after 3 a.m. Thursday, a hotel guest reported loud noises from one of the rooms. An employee came to investigate and found Furlong lying on the floor unconscious. She was pronounced dead shortly afterward.
In a statement released by Tokyo police and cited by IrishCentral.com, police said, “These two men allegedly took advantage of a female unable to resist due to the fact she was in a comatose state from a highly alcoholic beverage.
"On a taxi ride between Shibuya and Shinjuku, they took advantage of a woman by touching her body."
An autopsy says that Furlong was likely strangled, Japan's Mainichi reports.
"Nicola was a warm, generous, stunning person who always had time for her family and other people," the family of the deceased said in a statement on Sunday. "She stood for everything that is good in life."
Furlong's death is not the only death after a concert in recent history.
In February 2012, Jason Foster, 28, attended a concert in British Columbia, Canada, played by the band Hedley. During the concert, he and a friend were attacked by three men. Foster later died of his injuries. Police believe the altercation was triggered by a spilled beer.
In October 2009, Morgan Harrington, a 20-year-old Virginia Tech Student, disappeared after she lost her friends at a Metallica concert at the University of Virginia. Some of her belongings were found afterward in the parking lot outside, but her body was not discovered until months later at a farm outside Charlottesville. Her killer, whom police believe to be responsible as well for sexually assaulting a different woman in 2005, has not yet been caught.