Japanese Gets life imprisonment after killing a British woman
Tokyo, Japan — Tatsuya Ichihashi was convicted Thursday as guilty of murdering a British teacher, Lindsay Hawker, in March 2007. Hawker was raped and battered before she was killed by Ichihashi in his apartment. He is convicted to a life imprisonment sentence.
The victim’s body was found naked in Ichihashi’s bathtub helpless. The suspect began running away to escape from the crime. In his belief that he can forever elude from the crime, Ichihashi decided to undergo multiple cosmetic surgeries to alter his face and run away from the authorities in Japan.
In March 2007, a surveillance cam in a coffee shop showed the two met up in a coffee shop for an English lesson. Later on, they had to go to the suspect’s apartment so he could pay the services of Hawker’s. Then the deadly incident took place when the suspect mercilessly raping and killing the British woman.
10 million yen or approximately $127,000 was offered for the immediate capture of the suspect.In November 2009, the suspect was arrested in a ferry terminal in Osaka after more than two years and fleeing from the authorities.
Ichihashi’s trial was considered Japan’s version of the Casey Anthony Case in the U.S. where a woman was accused of murdering her 2 year old daughter but later on acquitted. The case was well publicized and closely followed by the media and the public.