A Chiba prefectural police officer stands by a panel of murder suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi on Friday. It will be placed at train stations next week.

Hawker's family to visit Japan on 2nd anniversary of her murder

Saturday 21st March, 06:09 AM JST

CHIBA —

The family of murdered British teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker will visit Japan again next week on the 2nd anniversary of her death. Members of the family, led by Lindsay’s father William, will arrive in Japan on Sunday.

On Monday, they will meet the new police chief at Gyotoku Police Station in Chiba Prefecture. The officer in charge of the investigation was recently replaced. After meeting with the police, the Hawkers and Lindsay’s friends will hand out flyers near Gyotoku station. On Tuesday, they will hold a press conference at the British embassy in Tokyo. They are also scheduled to have a meeting with the group Sora no Kai, that is campaigning for an end to the statute of limitations for murder cases.

The body of Hawker, 22, was discovered on March 26, 2007, buried in a bathtub of sand on the balcony of an apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture just outside Tokyo.

According to investigations, Tatsuya Ichihashi, the lone suspect in the case, befriended Lindsay, who worked for Nova Corp as an English teacher, several days before her death and asked her for private English lessons. Security cameras caught them together in a coffee shop on the day before her body was found.

When nine police officers called at his apartment on March 26 after the language school reported it had been unable to contact her, Ichihashi fled from them, managing to slip away despite having no shoes on.

The police have explained in their defense that they were investigating a missing person at that point and did not expect Ichihashi to get aggressive.

Chiba police have conducted door-to-door investigations at about 7,000 sites including restaurants and adult-entertainment areas in the forests of neon in Tokyo and its vicinity in the Kanto region.

They have also sent investigators to 20 prefectures, from Fukushima to Nagasaki, in an effort to track Ichihashi down. More than 44,000 investigators have been involved and more than 3,300 reports have been gathered.

There have been witness reports of Ichihashi from all of Japan’s 47 prefectures, as well as reports from other countries such as the Philippines, Canada and Portugal, according to the police.

But there has yet to be a breakthrough in the case.

In the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo, one of the areas where reported sightings of Ichihashi have been concentrated, police officers recently conducted intensive searches.

They asked at a members-only gay bar whether anyone had seen Ichihashi and the owner said, ‘‘I heard rumors that he is staying at (a gay bar in) Shinjuku Ward.’‘

Hawker’s family has questioned how Ichihashi has managed to be on the run for such a long time and urged the Japanese public to look for those who may be supporting him.

The National Police Agency has offered a reward of 1 million yen for information leading to the arrest of Ichihashi.

Compiled from wire reports

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Latest 15 of 44 Total Comments Show All

herefornow at 10:37 AM JST - 21st March

The J-police are reduced to doing meaningless PR gestures -- like putting live-sized cutouts in train stations -- in order to save some face on this debacle. That is insulting to the Hawkers and to the intelligence of the average J-citizen. First off, they would not be even doing it if the Hawkers were not coming, since they obviously don't want the press making a big deal about this. Second, the photo they are using is two years-old. Does anyone with even 1/2 a brain believe he still looks remotely like this? Typical Japan -- meaningless gestures, nothing more.
moonbeams at 03:00 PM JST - 21st March

This really bugs me, so I will post it again.

Here is the wikipedia article about the case in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MurderofLindsay_Hawker

Now here it is in Japanese: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%82%BC%E3%82%A4%E3%83%BB%E3%82%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%9B%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%81%95%E3%82%93%E6%AE%BA%E5%AE%B3%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6

If you can read Japanese, do you notice anything missing? The article never once names the suspect. It just says "the suspect."
jonnyboy at 03:38 PM JST - 21st March

indeed, the police continue their columbo-lite posturing in order to save face (which probably includes diplomatic relations with britain) but secretly praying that the hawkers will give up; as they surely must do eventually for peace of mind.

quite a big contrast to the recent case of the american guy who was sent down for murdering his japanese girlfriend (sorry can't find a link on this one)
BBLeo at 03:47 PM JST - 21st March

Why is this same article published again? 'NOTHING NEW IN JAPAN TODAY?'
medwaygarage at 05:15 PM JST - 21st March

Just spotted this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1582902/Lindsay-Hawker-suspects-father-in-suicide.html

Family and friends of Lindsay Ann Hawker have marked the first anniversary of her death in Tokyo amid reports that the father of the only suspect had committed suicide.Police refused to confirm or deny that Masayoshi Ichihashi, a wealthy doctor and the father of Tatsuya Ichihashi, 29, had killed himself last September. Japan's strict privacy laws make it difficult to confirm that he had committed suicide. However, the death was reported to The Daily Telegraph by a local journalist.

Mmmmm killed himself last September but leaked to the media when the Hawker family return to Japan,I smell a rat,Not even confirmed WTF !
DentShop at 09:38 PM JST - 21st March

A million yen??? This investigation must have already cost more than 100 million yen. Oh boy. RIP Lindsay.
isthistheend at 01:41 PM JST - 22nd March

No new comments. Is this the end of the interest? It doesn't sound good for the Hawkers. Last night I was talking about this to a group of 3 natives and they seemed uniformed about the issue. "But they didn't yet know he was guilty when (NINE) of the J-stones showed up at the door." Oh, really? I replied. But don't you think they could have divided up the group for 2 at the entrance, two at the elevator, 1 at the escape hatch-route, one waiting in squad car (if one was present, and if not, they should have been ready to chase on foot" and still have three left to knock on the door.
ThonTaddeo at 01:41 AM JST - 23rd March

Isthistheend, I agree completely. Imagine if a Japanese student had been killed (Ichihashi, say) and the main suspect was his English teacher. Do you think the cops would have been "expecting the suspect to get agressive"?

Yeah, thought so.

Moonbeams, the latest update of Wiki (as of the time of this post) does contain Ichihashi's name as a suspect. Not nearly as prominently as in the English version, but it's there.
ClassWarUK at 06:17 AM JST - 23rd March

The moronic police can't even catch this murderer and his piece of string, and he was bare footed, buffoons i tell you, buffoons!!!
moonbeams at 09:38 AM JST - 23rd March

ThonTaddeo,

Oh, I missed it. And it was just two days before I posted it!

2009年3月19日、千葉県警は死体遺棄容疑の市橋達也容疑者の肉声をインターネット上に公開した[6]。また、肉声が再生できる市橋達也容疑者の等身大パネルを行徳署へ自主的に設置した[7]。
dennis0bauer at 03:31 PM JST - 23rd March

Intensive search, yeaah right. Did they check his parents home or just from the front door? "is Tatsuya here", "no" "thank you for your help citizen".
saborichan at 11:48 AM JST - 24th March

Yes, one million yen is a joke. It would have cost quite a bit just to get those ridiculous (but effective?!) cardboard cutouts made. I saw some of those on the Japan vs Korea baseball news...

Someone wanting to escape the cops will do their damndest, shoes or not. And when they came to see him, they hadn't found the body yet ... He knew what he was in for, but they weren't to know just what had gone down.
mistersmarmy at 12:47 PM JST - 24th March

despite this guy being a complete lunatic, he's actually only a threat to western girls. so that must be why he's classified as low priority.
Blue_Tiger at 06:55 PM JST - 24th March

I believe the perp has left the country. After all, with such "tough 'investigation'" that has been carried out by the police, it should be easy as pie for him to have gotten away.
jonnyboy at 03:35 PM JST - 26th March

i'm a bit confused by the 2-chome link. is the implication that he's gay? or just that it's a good place to hide regardless?