Carita Ridgway was a 21-year-old model from Perth, Australia, who also went to Tokyo to work in 1992, a full eight years before Lucie Blackman disappeared. She initially wanted to teach English, but enjoyed earning the large amounts of money paid to hostesses. That is, until a strange incident involving an older man.

On Friday, February 14, 1992, Ridgway went with other hostesses to dinner with several customers. Although it has never been determined exactly how, Ridgway left with one of these men. Her housemates – her sister, Samantha, among them – then received a strange message indicating she had gone away for the weekend. On Monday morning, they received another call, this time from a hospital telling them Carita had been admitted.

Rushing to her sister's bedside, Samantha was told that the now unconscious Carita had been dropped off by an older Japanese man named "Akira Nishida," who claimed that Carita had fallen ill after eating shellfish. He provided hospital staff with Carita's name and local phone number and left. As Carita slipped into a coma, "Nishida" called Samantha several times, repeating the story of how Carita had fallen ill from eating raw shellfish, but he would always politely refuse to provide specific contact information.

Within weeks, Carita Ridgway ultimately suffered complete organ failure and brain death. Her parents, who had flown to Tokyo to be with their daughter, decided to take her off of life support. She was cremated without autopsy.

Before they left the country, her parents had a strange meeting in an airport hotel in which "Mr. Nishida," who nervously offered to pay for Carita's funeral, again told the shellfish story, and even gave them a diamond necklace and ring he bought for their daughter. Despite repeated attempts by Samantha Ridgway and her Japanese boyfriend to involve the police, once the authorities heard Carita was a bar hostess, they adamantly refused to investigate.