Investigation
Police suspect that between Sunday night and early Monday, Ichihashi moved the bathtub from the bathroom to the balcony and put Hawker's body into it. Neighbors said they heard sounds of something striking metal and something being dragged during that time. Police obtained an arrest warrant Tuesday for Ichihashi on suspicion of abandoning her body, and put him on the nationwide wanted list. On 29 March, detectives removed a shopping trolley from Ichihashi’s apartment building, in which he is believed to have transported the bags of horticultural soil where Hawker was buried. On 29 March, a team of twenty Japanese police officers raided Hotel Chateau, a love hotel near Nishi-Funabashi Station, east of Tokyo, where rooms are rented to couples by the hour, but did not find Ichihashi. On 13 March 2008, Japanese police released a new wanted poster of Ichihashi, which included an enhanced image of the suspect disguised as a woman. They also released images of a drawing he had made of Hawker in the hopes that someone would recognize the drawing style.
In the early months of 2008, the police investigated sightings of Ichihashi among the gay sections of Kabukicho in Tokyo, where he had tentatively been identified by his male sexual partners. However, in the latter part of this year, the investigation appeared to have gone cold. In October 2008, by which time 140 officers had become involved in what was a relatively large investigation, it was suggested by police that Ichihashi may have committed suicide. Hawker's father called this a "ploy" to scale down the operation, and some inside sources signalled that the investigation was coming to a close. However, this was not directly communicated to either the Hawker family or the British Foreign Office.
Reports continued to abound speculating Ichihashi's location, and on 15 January 2009, in an article in Japan Today, it was reported that Ichihashi, who had turned 30 on 5 January 2009, had fled and gone underground in the Philippines, according to a reporter from Spa!, the weekly magazine. For years, Japanese criminals wanted by Japanese authorities have fled to the Philippines to escape arrest, making the Philippines something of a haven for Japanese criminals. On the second anniversary of her death (see below), life-size cut-outs of Ichihashi were released by the police to raise the profile of the case. At this point, the Hawkers were for the first time critical of the progress the investigation was making.
On 26 June 2009, the Japanese National Police Agency raised the cash reward for information leading to the arrest of Tatsuya Ichihashi, from ¥1 million to ¥10 million. Police usually offer cash rewards of ¥1 million to ¥3 million for information leading to arrest in serious cases. The manner in which this reward would be distributed was questioned when Ichihashi was arrested later that year, as a number of informants had contributed to his capture. These included a cosmetic surgery clinic in Nagoya, an employee at an Osaka construction company where Ichihashi had been employed for 14 months, and an Osaka ferry company employee who reported the sighting of someone who bore resemblance to Ichihashi.
On 4 November 2009, police disclosed that Ichihashi had undergone plastic surgery on 24 October at the clinic in Nagoya, where he had his nose uplifted after he had failed to receive surgery in Fukuoka in mid-October. He had apparently received cosmetic surgery on several occasions to remove two moles on his cheek, add a fold to his eyelids, thin both his lips, and to increase the height of his nose before he visited the Nagoya clinic. Police released a photograph taken immediately before his latest surgery to the press.
Read more about this topic: Murder Of Lindsay Hawker