British teacher found dead in a bath of sand near Tokyo

[-88-]

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/03_02/HawkerJapanNWS_468x334.jpg
Lindsay Ann Hawker, 22, found dead in a bathtub of sand

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/03_02/ichihashiAP2703_228x377.jpg
Police are hunting 28-year-old
Tatsuya Ichihashi, who fled the
scene of the crime when confronted


A young British language teacher has died in a macabre murder in Japan.
Police found the body of 22-year-old Lindsay Hawker almost completely buried in a bathtub filled with sand.

Only part of her hand was showing and the killer may have been planning to encase her body in concrete.

The bath had been dragged on to the balcony of a fourth-floor apartment in Tokyo.

A massive manhunt was under way last night for the owner of the flat, 28-year-old Tatsuya Ishihashi, who fled as police arrived.

Lindsay, who had bruises on her face, is believed to have been strangled.

link (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=444841&in_page_id=1811)

[Dragasès]

One loco-looking nipponese. May have taken the concrete idea from that Sean Connery jap insider movie of a few years back.

[Rasp]

British teacher was beaten and asphyxiated (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/29/wjapmurder429.xml)

British teacher was beaten and asphyxiated

Lindsay Hawker, the British teacher found murdered in Japan, had been beaten, tied up and either suffocated or strangled, an autopsy revealed today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2007/03/29/njap29b.jpg

Lindsay (from left) with her sisters Louise and Lisa

Miss Hawker’s naked body was found buried in a bathtub full of sand with only her hand sticking out, left on the fourth floor balcony belonging to a man she is understood to have been giving English lessons.

Neighbours apparently heard scraping noises coming from the flat at around the time she was being killed.

Today, as her body was released to her father, William, who had flown out to Japan, it emerged that the prime suspect, Tatsuya Ichihashi, 28, studied horticulture at university and had met Miss Hawker in a bar, followed her home and begged for an English lesson.

The tape used to bind Miss Hawker’s hands is commonly used by gardeners, and the sand used to bury her is for sold in most garden centres

Police have not revealed whether she was sexually assaulted but said she had been severely beaten around the face.

They also revealed that they had found a shopping trolley in the bike shed of Ichihashi’s apartment block, in Ichikawa near Tokyo, which they believe he may have used to transport bags of sand from a garden centre.

Detectives said today they believed that Ichihashi met Miss Hawker, who had been in Japan for five months teaching English at a Tokyo language school, for the first time 10 days ago.

He reportedly followed her back to her home, running after her as she cycled, and pleaded with her to give him English lessons.

She let him into her apartment in the presence of her two flatmates, where he wrote his name and contact details on a piece of paper for her and also drew a sketch of her.

She is then believed to have gone to his apartment on Sunday morning to give him a lesson, and did not return.

It also emerged today that as Ichihashi ran barefoot from the police who had come looking for Miss Hawker, he dropped a backpack containing clothes, suggesting he was preparing to go on the run.

Miss Hawker’s handbag and passport were also found nearby. Reports also said that Ichihashi was fanatical about Manga cartoons and that police were looking at the possibility he killed Miss Hawker in imitation of a storyline in one of the popular cartoon-books.

He is thought to have met Miss Hawker at one of the bars she frequented in the area near where he lived.

Police today raided a hotel after a tip-off that someone resembling Ichihashi, who is still at large, was staying there, but emerged empty-handed.

Mr Hawker, from Brandon, Coventry, who is in Japan with his daughter’s boyfriend, Ryan Garside, is expected to fly back with the body in the next few days.

[vorlos]

Another brainwashed victim of diversity. When is this going to end?

vv

[James_Elliot]

Who knew this thing would happen in Japan... I'm so surprised that even most white nationalists are willing to give Japs a credit... Don't forget what the Japs used to do to White Australian POWs during WWII.... They are no different from the rest of the dark scums... In fact, Japs are just the sneakiest of all and inside, they are brutal.

[BB-Leo]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2405125.ece

British teacher died from suffocation


By David McNeill in Tokyo


March 30, 2007



JAPAN

Lindsay Hawker, the British teacher murdered earlier this week in an apartment near Tokyo was suffocated, probably from strangulation, Japanese police said yesterday as they continued the nationwide manhunt for her suspected killer.

An unemployed man, Tatsuya Ichihashi, who owned the flat and fled when the police called, is wanted for abandoning Ms Hawker's body in a bathtub.

"She was either strangled or smothered to death," said a police spokesman, adding that the victim's face and body were also badly bruised, suggesting she had been beaten.

Ms Hawker's father, Bill, who travelled to Japan with her boyfriend, Ryan Garside, saw his daughter's body yesterday for the first time in a funeral home close to Tokyo. The two grieving men also visited the small flat she had shared with two foreign teachers since arriving in Japan last year, and spent hours sorting through her belongings.

At a press conference after he arrived in Japan on Wednesday, Mr Hawker vowed "not to rest" until her killer is caught. A British embassy official in Tokyo said Mr Hawker would take his daughter's remains home to Brandon, near Coventry, as soon as paperwork is completed.

Investigators have quashed rumours that Ms Hawker was romantically linked with the suspect, saying he approached her days before her murder as she was cycling home from work and asked for a private English lesson. Police say she told a colleague that the man followed her home and they suspect Mr Ichihashi may have been stalking her.

Ms Hawker later mentioned the stalker in an email home to her boyfriend, describing the incident as an example of "crazy Japan". News reports say the man later went to Ms Hawker's flat and gave her a note with his contact details, which led police to his flat after she disappeared last weekend. The woman had been buried naked and face up in a sand-filled bathtub on the balcony of the flat, possibly in an attempt to mask the smell of her decomposing corpse.

Friends and colleagues say Mr Ichihashi came from a wealthy family who paid for his apartment and gave him a monthly allowance. Several have described him as a loner.

[Davy of old England]

CCTV shows murdered British teacher

http://cdn.digitalcity.com/aoluk_articles/00/01/20070402060809990001.4610d660-0019d-02322-400cb8e1
CCTV footage of murdered British teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker with the main suspect just hours before her death has been broadcast.

Police in Japan have issued an arrest warrant for 28-year-old Tatsuya Ichihashi, who fled a Tokyo apartment as officers arrived and discovered Miss Hawker's body in a bath of sand on the balcony on March 26.

Miss Hawker, 22, from Brandon near Coventry, had been badly beaten before being strangled.

The grainy CCTV footage shows the pair together in a coffee shop near Tokyo just hours before she was murdered, according to the Kyodo News agency.


Suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi has fled his Tokyo apartment
Miss Hawker, wearing a knee-length white coat, and suspect Ichihashi, dressed in dark clothes with a grey hat, are seen chatting at the counter.

Miss Hawker seems relaxed before making her way from the store as Ichihashi pays and then follows her.

Police released the images to the Nippon Television Network in the hope it would move their investigation forward.

The body of Miss Hawker was found last Monday. It is still unclear if the English language teacher was sexually assaulted.

Japanese police launched a manhunt as soon as Miss Hawker's body was found but so far have been unable to track down their prime suspect.

Ichihashi first approached Miss Hawker about possible English lessons on March 21. Japanese police said she had allowed Ichihashi into her flat after he followed her home from a railway station.

She later agreed to give him an English lesson at his home. She was reported missing seven days ago by her employer, the Nova language school.

http://news.aol.co.uk/cctv-shows-murdered-british-teacher/article/20070402060809990001

[-88-]

Lindsay killer terrorised another girl from Britain (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=446487&in_page_id=1770)

The Japanese man suspected of murdering Lindsay Hawker stalked another British woman teacher last year, scaring her so much she fled the country, it emerged yesterday.

The young woman left her job in Japan and returned to the UK fearing for her safety after horticultural student Tatsuya Ichihashi followed her after apparently asking her to help him with his English.

Police and officials of the Nova Intercultural Institute, which employed Miss Hawker, refused to name the woman, who returned to Britain in September.

But his request for help to learn English bears ominous similarities to 28-year-old Ichihashi's approaches to Miss Hawker, who did agree to give him lessons in a private deal away from her regular job.

The two approaches confirm suggestions that Ichihashi had a dangerous obsession with foreign women (i.e. white women) and, having failed the first time around, came up with a trick to lure Miss Hawker back to his apartment.

There she was beaten, tortured, stripped naked and had her neck broken before her body was dumped in a bath and covered in sand.

Police have confirmed that Miss Hawker's long brown hair was cut off and stuffed into a plastic bag that Ichihashi apparently planned to take with him after hiding her body in the bath. The plan was foiled when he had to flee from police who called at the flat the day after the murder.

The act of cutting off her hair has suggested to criminal profilers that the killer wanted it as a token, the action of a deviant who may now have an urge to collect further victim souvenirs.

[Davy of old England]

The act of cutting off her hair has suggested to criminal profilers that the killer wanted it as a token, the action of a deviant who may now have an urge to collect further victim souvenirs.

Looks ominously like old Ichifanny Sakash*ta may turn out to be a serial killer. I wonder if the nip police have started sifting through the missing white women database........ Nah, didn't thinks so.

[William of the White Hand]

Friend of Hawker murderer Tatsuya Ichihashi tells of his predilection for white girls


Forgotten fugitive Tatsuya Ichihashi's fascination for white women drove him to strip bars where he could pay for private dances from topless Westerners, according to Shukan Asahi (6/8).

The 28-year-old accused of the March slaying of Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker showed signs a decade ago of the chilling behavior he showed in the lead-up to the 22-year-old English teacher's death, a one-time friend of the fugitive tells the weekly.

Ichihashi, who has vanished without a trace since Hawker's death, frequently used to draw cartoon pictures on the whiteboard of his classroom. He is said to have handed Hawker a manga likeness that he had drawn of her to lure the Briton into becoming his private English teacher.

"What I remember most about Ichihashi is the time in September 1997 when we invited him to come out with us for a night on the town in Roppongi," the friend, who shared a dormitory at an inner Tokyo cram school with Ichihashi, tells Shukan Asahi. "We left the dorm after eating dinner and started trying to pick-up from about 8 o'clock."

The friend, now a doctor working in the Tohoku Region, says Ichihashi noticed a 20-something woman and began trailing her, following her all the way to her apartment and finally talking to her just as she was about to enter. He asked her if she would like to go out for a drink.

"Even after she turned him down, he kept nagging at her. Finally, she walked away from him, but he didn't mind, saying 'Let's go back and try again.' He did the same thing to another five women over the following two hours," the doctor says. "When he finally gave up, one of the street touts talked us into going to a strip joint with foreign performers. The tout wanted to charge us 5,000 yen without a drink to get in, but Ichihashi managed to talk him down into giving us two drinks. Ichihashi was really friendly and his ability to communicate in those ways was really awesome."

When the friend, Ichihashi and their buddies entered the bar, they were greeted by the sight of a young white woman grinding and thrusting against a pole up on a stage. Other scantily clad Caucasian women strutted around the club, begging patrons to buy them drinks and offering what they suggestively called "optional extras." Ichihashi drank a Scotch on the rocks as he soaked up the scene.

"Looking back on it now, I realize it was an incredible place packed with the most gorgeous women. Ichihashi had his eye on a tall, white woman with jet black hair. When she asked him if he'd like to go out for a private dance, he screamed 'I can't handle it anymore,' borrowed 5,000 yen from me and headed off into a private booth with the woman," the doctor says. "When they came out again about 10 minutes later, he looked furious. It was all right to touch the breasts, but there was no kissing or using of fingers. Seems like it had been different from what he had imagined."

The group stayed in the club till around 3 a.m., then loitered in a nearby McDonald's drinking coffee until the first train a couple of hours later.

"That's the only time (in a year of sharing the same dormitory) that I ever saw Ichihashi have anything to do with women. I never heard him talk of having a girlfriend. Even when girls at the cram school showed an interest in him, he totally brushed them off," the doctor says.

Ichihashi and the doctor lost contact in early 1998 after results from university entrance exams came out. Ichihashi called his dorm-mate, saying he'd missed out on medical school and was thinking of becoming a PE teacher. It was the last time the two spoke. Ichihashi subsequently studied at Yokohama National University before dropping out and eventually moving to Chiba University, from where he finally graduated with a degree in landscape gardening.

Shukan Asahi (6/8)The Tohoku doctor has no idea where Ichihashi has headed, but urges him to get in touch.

"Ichihashi, our night in Roppongi is still a great memory, as I'm sure it was for you," the doctor tells Shukan Asahi. "Stop running and give me a call. I want to talk to you."

[-88-]

From The Times
August 21, 2007

Sadistic killer gagged and beat my daughter all over, then he cut off her hair (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2295855.ece)

Lindsay Hawker, the young British teacher whose strangled body was found buried in an earth-filled bath in Japan, had been “sadistically” beaten and may have survived, gagged and bound, for a day and a half before her death, her father told The Times.

The appalling details of her last hours were contained in the post-mortem examination report, which was translated recently for her family.

They will add to the pressure on Japanese detectives to apprehend the only suspect, Tatsuya Ichihashi, 28, who escaped from nine police officers from the apartment where Ms Hawker’s body was found on March 26, and who has been at large ever since.

“It was a horrific murder — there was literally not a square inch of her body that wasn’t badly bruised,” her father, Bill Hawker, said from his family’s home in Brandon, near Coventry. “He tied her up with horticultural tape. This is dreadful to say, but he punched, kicked or used a blunt instrument throughout her body. This could have gone on a day and a half, possibly, before the poor thing eventually died.

“There was total bruising of the front of the body, defensive bruises on her arms, which were dreadfully knocked about, all of her back, the inside of her legs. It was as if he’d systematically injured every part of her body. It was sadistic, a truly sadistic murder.

“When I had to identify my daughter, the Japanese had her so that I could only see the top of her head and her face. I didn’t want to see the rest of her body. Her face was badly beaten — they had put on a lot of make-up, and my daughter never wore make-up. So we never realised the extent of her injuries. [He] also cut her hair off — the final indignity for her was to have her hair cut off.”

The Times has also learnt that Mr Ichihashi had attempted to befriend another foreign woman three months before Ms Hawker’s murder in March. He approached a young French woman in December in a bookshop in central Tokyo, and asked her to give him private English lessons and to pose for him as he drew her portrait — ploys that he used on the 22-year-old Ms Hawker. “It’s chilling because this is exactly the same thing that he said to Lindsay,” her mother, Julia Hawker, said. “You wonder how many other girls he might have tried this with, and how many times he might have been successful.”

Police in Chiba, the prefecture adjacent to metropolitan Tokyo, into which many of the capital’s suburbs spill, have steadfastly refused to disclose more than sketchy details of their investigation. Recently, even the Hawkers have received less and less information. “We used to get a report every day, via the British Embassy in Tokyo and the Foreign Office, but now it’s just once a week,” Mr Hawker said.

When Mr and Mrs Hawker visited Japan in June with their other daughter, Louise, they were diplomatically polite about the Japanese authorities, but now all pretence of satisfaction with the police investigation has been abandoned.

“They’re not telling us anything new,” Mr Hawker said. “They say they’re searching amusement arcades, and in ‘love hotels’, and gay bars. They seem to think those are the kind of places he might be hiding. But it’s the same thing over and over again. What we want to hear about is a new initiative.

“We think it is disgraceful that the Japanese police let Ichihashi go when our daughter’s body was lying just yards away.

“We have been told that at that time there was not enough evidence that a crime had been committed to formally arrest him, as it was only a missing person inquiry.

“But the question we want answered is why did they send nine officers if they didn’t suspect a crime had been committed?”