Murderer's life on the run
Source: Agencies |
January 27, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
While on the run for two years, a Japanese man wanted for the murder of a British woman scissored off his lower lip, dug two moles out of his cheek with a box cutter and gave himself a nose job in an attempt to obscure his identity.
The disclosures come in a book released yesterday and written from jail by Tatsuya Ichihashi, who will stand trial later this year for the murder and rape of his English teacher, Lindsay Ann Hawker.
Hawker, 22, was found dead in a sand-filled bathtub on the balcony of Ichihashi's apartment in Chiba, east of Tokyo, in March 2007.
Ichihashi, arrested in 2009 after a lengthy nationwide manhunt, admits to taking Hawker's life in the book, "Until The Arrest." But he doesn't describe the crime or his motives, instead detailing his life at large, during which he traveled up and down the country, in constant fear of arrest and obsessed with cosmetic surgery.
Police say Ichihashi has confessed to assaulting Hawker and that she died from her injuries, but he won't enter a plea until the trial begins.
After escaping police who came to his apartment to question him, he bound up his nose with a thread and needle to make it narrower.
At first, Ichihashi, 32, wandered around Tokyo and then drifted north to Aomori prefecture, where he twice tried to cut off part of his lower lip to make it thinner. The first time, he couldn't follow through because of the pain, he wrote. He finished it up a few days later in a public bathroom.
Once he walked past a police station and saw a wanted poster with his face on it. It was then that he sliced off the moles on his cheek - prominent in the wanted picture.
Having saved nearly 1 million yen (US$12,100) from a string of construction jobs, he spent most of it on two plastic surgery operations.
Staff at the second clinic took many photos of his left cheek with traces of moles he had removed, which seemed "strange."
The clinic sent the photos to police - news that was splashed in Japanese newspapers.
Ichihashi immediately checked out of his hotel, got a haircut and even bought a party disguise set.
He was caught on November 10, 2009, by police at the ferry terminal in Osaka. One of the officers asked his name. Ichihashi gave his real name and was arrested.
The disclosures come in a book released yesterday and written from jail by Tatsuya Ichihashi, who will stand trial later this year for the murder and rape of his English teacher, Lindsay Ann Hawker.
Hawker, 22, was found dead in a sand-filled bathtub on the balcony of Ichihashi's apartment in Chiba, east of Tokyo, in March 2007.
Ichihashi, arrested in 2009 after a lengthy nationwide manhunt, admits to taking Hawker's life in the book, "Until The Arrest." But he doesn't describe the crime or his motives, instead detailing his life at large, during which he traveled up and down the country, in constant fear of arrest and obsessed with cosmetic surgery.
Police say Ichihashi has confessed to assaulting Hawker and that she died from her injuries, but he won't enter a plea until the trial begins.
After escaping police who came to his apartment to question him, he bound up his nose with a thread and needle to make it narrower.
At first, Ichihashi, 32, wandered around Tokyo and then drifted north to Aomori prefecture, where he twice tried to cut off part of his lower lip to make it thinner. The first time, he couldn't follow through because of the pain, he wrote. He finished it up a few days later in a public bathroom.
Once he walked past a police station and saw a wanted poster with his face on it. It was then that he sliced off the moles on his cheek - prominent in the wanted picture.
Having saved nearly 1 million yen (US$12,100) from a string of construction jobs, he spent most of it on two plastic surgery operations.
Staff at the second clinic took many photos of his left cheek with traces of moles he had removed, which seemed "strange."
The clinic sent the photos to police - news that was splashed in Japanese newspapers.
Ichihashi immediately checked out of his hotel, got a haircut and even bought a party disguise set.
He was caught on November 10, 2009, by police at the ferry terminal in Osaka. One of the officers asked his name. Ichihashi gave his real name and was arrested.
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