Freeloader Ichihashi lived in an apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, that
his parents owned and where Hawker's body was eventually found on March 26.
Though a graduate of a prestigious university, Ichihashi chose not to work,
instead living off mommy and daddy -- posh physicians living in a palatial
mansion (in the true sense of the word) in Gifu Prefecture.
"His parents were classmates at a private high school in Gifu. Both graduated
and moved on to Nihon University, where his father studied to become a surgeon
and mother a dentist," a reporter for a national daily tells Josei Jishin.
"Until the killing, the father had been the head of an Aichi Prefecture
hospital's surgical department. The mother was running the family dental
clinic, but has since shut it down."
Neighbors spoke highly of the accused killer's parents.
"The father is a warm, gentle type, even though the mother is a bit snappy,"
one neighbor tells the women's weekly.
Ichihashi drastically changed his generous parents' lives, too, the moment he
allegedly took Hawker's.
"He told us directly that it was impossible for him to work, so he has been
placed on indefinite leave. Someone else has taken over his job," says a
spokesman for the hospital where Ichihashi's father worked.
The women's weekly notes that the parents are now holed up in the Gifu palace
with a tap on their phone that allows phone calls to be tracked, in hopes that
their son will ring them.
Of course, they wouldn't need to be there were it not for the bumbling Chiba
Prefectural Police, who allowed Ichihashi to literally slip out of their hands
the night Hawker's body was discovered, according to Weekly Playboy.
A junior high schoolboy from Ichikawa tells a tale of incompetent
crime-fighting that would be comical were the consequences not so tragic.
"This group of about five or six cops carrying flashlights came running up the
road, shouting 'Stop, wait.' One of the cops came over to me. 'We're after a
crook on the run. Give us that bike for a minute,' he said and snatched my
bicycle away from me," the boy tells Weekly Playboy.
The boy says he was terrified, so stayed by a police officer's side. "But the
officer flashed his light into a parking lot and then, all of a sudden, this
shadow came flying out of the darkness. It was like a huge ape. The cop grabbed
it and had pinned his arms, but the guy twisted him around and elbowed him. As
the cop bent over, the man ran away," the boy says.
What they boy has to say so far has been pretty widely reported. But what he
says next must be a condemnation of police handling of the case.
"While he was grappling with Ichihashi, the cop was screaming out at me, 'Call
the cops! Call the cops!' What was I supposed to do? 'You are the cops,' I
shouted back," the boy says. "The cop was pathetic. You couldn't rely on him
for anything."
Chiba Prefectural Police still have 150 officers searching for Ichihashi, but
he has vanished without a trace.
Many say he has taken his own life, but others believe he is out there,
somewhere. Among those who hold out hope of finding the accused killer but who
have given up hope of the police ever catching him are a group of Hawker's
friends who have formed what the Japanese media is calling a "vigilante group."
"Most of the members are English people who used to hang out at the same cafe
that Hawker-san went to," a friend of Hawker's tells Weekly Playboy. "They are
looking for Ichihashi through the foreign resident community. They're trying
much harder to find him than the Chiba Prefectural Police force are."
Copyright 1999-2007, Mainchi Daily. Used with permission. All rights
reserved. Ryann Connell is a Staff Writer and Senior Desk Editor for the
Mainchi Daily News. No content may be reproduced in whole or part without
written permission. Please contact us via the link below for re-print and
syndication policies or visit Mainchi Daily at http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/
for more information on Mainchi stories.