News

Wanted: Tatsuya Ichihashi

ICHIKAWA, Chiba -- A man believed to be a 30-year-old fugitive wanted in connection with the killing of a British English language teacher underwent cosmetic surgery at a clinic in Nagoya late last month, it has emerged.

Police have dispatched a team of investigators to the area and are searching for the man, whom they suspect to be 30-year-old fugitive Tatsuya Ichihashi.

Ichihashi has been placed on a police wanted list on suspicion of abandoning the body of Lindsay Ann Hawker. The 22-year-old teacher's body was found on the balcony of Ichihashi's apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, in March 2007.

Investigators said the man received cosmetic surgery toward the end of October. He was about 180 centimeters tall -- around the same height as Ichihashi -- and his facial features prior to surgery matched Ichihashi, leading police to judge there was a high possibility that the man was the fugitive.

Police placed Ichihashi on a wanted list in March 27, 2007. He is accused of abandoning the murdered teacher's body on around March 25 or 26 that year.

Hawker had worked as a teacher at an English language school in Tokyo, but on March 26, 2007, a worker from her school phoned police, saying that attempts to contact her had been unsuccessful. Police found part of Ichihashi's name and his telephone number on a note in Hawker's apartment. They visited his apartment and were questioning him in front of his home at about 9:40 p.m. the same evening, when he fled. Police later found Hawker's body in a bathtub on Ichihashi's balcony, buried in sand with her knees bent.

An autopsy found that Hawker had been strangled with considerable force, and her face and limbs had been hit. After the killing, Hawker's family came to Japan several times, calling for information on the case.

In June this year police raised the reward for solid information on Ichihashi's whereabouts from 1 million yen to the upper limit of 10 million yen for the first time in Japan.