The Chilling Japan Bathtub Murder And How Killer Fooled Cops For 3 Years With 'Changed Face'

The chilling details from the 2007 Tokyo rape and murder case triggered massive outrage as scores of people mounted pressure on authorities to punish the killer.

In a bid to not get caught by the police, Ichihashi tried cutting his own lip and removing moles from his face.

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In 2007, a 22-year-old UK teacher met Tatsuya Ichihashi aged 28 years at a cafe in Tokyo after she agreed to give him private English classes. After a while, Ichihashi persuaded her to visit his home. The duo took a taxi. She asked the taxi driver to wait for her outside briefly as she went into the apartment. She did not come out of his apartment. The driver left after seven minutes. She was reported missing the next day and her employer at the Nova language school in Koiwa informed her parents. Two days later, she was found dead in a sand-filled bathtub in the balcony of Ichihashi's house, sparking a media frenzy and massive outrage. She had arrived in Japan from the UK six months before the incident. 

The story of her rape and killing sent shockwaves across the world. Ichihashi had been able to give police the slip when they reached his house and found Hawker's body. For almost three years, he was not to be found even as scores of people demanded justice for Hawker and kept mounting pressure on the authorities.

CHANGED FACE TO FOOL COPS

The Japan police launched a nationwide manhunt after Hawker's body was found in Ichihashi's apartment on March 26, 2007. As the pressure kept building, the police announced big rewards for information leading to his arrest. Despite every effort of the police, he managed to escape the law for nearly three years. Ichihashi stayed at different locations across Japan, used false names and took manual work to pay for several rounds of plastic surgery to his face. He was finally arrested in 2009 from a port in western Japan while waiting for a ferry to the southern island of Okinawa after his plastic surgeon contacted the police.

In a bid to not get caught by the police, he tried cutting his own lip and removing moles from his face. His attempts to change his appearance eventually led to his arrest after staff at a clinic where he had surgery on his nose became suspicious and reported him to police, BBC reported.

KILLER PUBLISHES BOOK

A former student of horticulture, Ichihashi wrote a book about his life on the run, including living on a remote island and spending his days fishing. The book turned out to be a bestseller, and Ichihashi reportedly wanted earnings from it to go to Hawker’s family or charity, but the same was turned down by the victim's family who just demanded stern punishment.

SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON

In 2011, Ichihasi was sentenced to life imprisonment. "We can assume that the defendant had an intention to murder the victim when he put pressure on her neck,” presiding judge Masaya Hotta of Chiba District Court, near Tokyo, was quoted as saying in a Reuters report from the time. “It is impossible to measure the victim’s regret, having to end in such a devastating situation her 22-year-old life that was filled with many possibilities,” Hotta said. In earlier sessions, Ichihashi had denied the intention of killing Hawker and said he was unaware he was suffocating her and tried to revive her.

As he was sentenced to life in prison, presiding judge Masaya Hotta told the courtroom: "He raped her to satisfy his sexual desire, then tried to cover up the rape by killing her. He then attempted to conceal the murder by abandoning her body. The crime was inexcusable and savage. Ichihashi has repeated irrational, unnatural statements that are contradicted by the evidence. We do not believe that he has reflected [on his crime] from the bottom of his heart."

On the day of the ruling, a pale-looking, teary-eyed Ichihashi told the court that he raped her but he did not mean to kill her. He said: "Yes, I raped her. Yes, I agree that she died because of my actions. But I did not mean to kill her. Only she and I know what really happened that day, but she can no longer speak for herself because of me. It is my responsibility, to tell the truth throughout this trial."

The case was reported widely in Japan and Britain, and about 950 people reportedly gathered in the court's public gallery during the hearing.