Associated Press
Police officers clear the way for a car carrying murder suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi, who got plastic surgery while on the run.
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Surgically disguised suspect to face justice
TOKYO - Japanese police said yesterday that they had arrested the main suspect in the slaying of a British teacher whose body was found taped and half-buried in a sand-filled bathtub, ending a more than two-year manhunt.
Lindsay Ann Hawker, 22, was found dead in March 2007 on the balcony of an apartment in Chiba, east of Tokyo. She was an English teacher at a private language school and the apartment belonged to one of her students, Tatsuya Ichihashi.
Ichihashi, 30, who had been on the run since police found the body, was arrested on suspicion of abandonment of a body after being spotted yesterday at a ferry terminal in the western city of Osaka, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.
Ichihashi underwent cosmetic surgery several times while traveling across the country, forcing investigators to verify his identity through fingerprints, the Osaka police official said.
In London, the victim's father, Bill Hawker, told reporters: "The battle is over. We've worked tirelessly as a family; we've never given in. We wanted justice and we finally got justice."
He said that his family was relieved by the arrest and that "I can go down to my daughter's grave to tell her."
In Gifu, the suspect's hometown in central Japan, Ichihashi's father, Masayoshi, said he was "relieved" by his son's arrest. He told his son via an interview with NHK: "You committed a crime. You must be brought to justice. I want you to atone for what you did."
Police recently offered a 10 million yen ($110,000) reward for information leading to Ichihashi's arrest, raising the amount by 10 times from an initial offer.
