The Killer That Deformed His Own Face | The Disturbing Case of Tatsuya Ichihashi

it was a crime so strange called and calculated that it united two nations in shock and despair and with the suspect soaring to the top of japan's most wanted list he would deform his own face to keep his real identity hidden to the world my name is adrian and welcome back to coffee house crime today we're looking at the case of tatsuya ichihashi and his victim lindsay hawker there are many strange and disturbing details to this case including a body and a flower pot plastic surgery to avoid detection and a world hunt for a suspect

that would take police years across the entire nation of japan to capture so pull up a seat grab a coffee and sit back this is the case of tatsuya ichihashi [Music] although our story today takes us to japan we're starting it in england in a city called coventry is located deep in the midlands of england known for its medieval cathedral and sadly also for its destruction during world war ii coventry has bounced back in the last few decades to become an engineering powerhouse to the united kingdom with easy access to both london and birmingham and

most of the country less than a two-hour drive away it's a well-situated city with a lot to offer to its residents and one of those residents was lindsay hawker [Music] lindsay was born on december 30th 1984 to her father bill and mother julia hawker she was a happy child growing up and had two sisters named louise and lisa she was schooled at king henry viii school and at the end of college she ventured to the university of leeds to study biology she met university with academic success too and in 2006 she achieved a first class

honours grade being both very serious about her future career while also being popular among her friends lindsay had lot going for her she was bright nurturing caring and successful but she also had an appetite to try something new before pursuing her master's degree and so in mid 2006 she hatched up a plan lindsay decided to take a year out of a busy schedule to do a bit of travelling while she worked she figured that a year out of education would bring a new perspective to her life and so in october 2006 she signed up to

nova teaching school and found herself on a plane to japan she had signed up to nova japan's largest private english school which recruits adults from around the world to teach the language in both osaka and tokyo nova is considered to be a prestigious assignment and lindsay was one of the lucky few who managed to grab a spot after touching down in tokyo lindsay was finally assigned to kaiwa a district in the edagawa ward of tokyo and she would quickly find both comfort and excitement in their surroundings located only 17 minutes away from akihabara and 22

minutes away from asakusa there's a plethora of sites activities and fun things to do near koiwa whether you're there for food parks shopping temples or just a good drink tokyo has it all she had found herself in one of the most interesting cities that the world has to offer and she was loving it she decided to move a little further east from tokyo center to a place called chiba here the rent was cheaper she also moved in with two other teachers both of them also working at another school and very quickly the three would become

friends and soon after lindsay's time in tokyo started to fly by although she was loving her time away from home lindsay often still thought about home she had a loving family a large group of friends and a boyfriend back in england and so with that said the home bird often kept in contact through facebook skype text and phone call it was six months into a stay in tokyo in march 2007 that lindsay had an awkward encounter she had finished work for the day and traveled back to chiba station before collecting her bike as she was

unlocking her bike a man approached her from behind when she turned around the man greeted her by saying you are my english teacher. lindsay was confused by the situation she was sure that he was not one of her students she awkwardly declined to comment but the man continued following her she jumped on her bike and began to cycle away but still the man followed her she sped up his walking turned into jogging and then his jogging into running and with cheba's many roads and intersecting walkways it was almost impossible for lindsay to escape him he

continued to strike a conversation asking lindsay where she was from and where she studied she still tried to shake him off though she eventually reached her apartment and this is where she stopped her bike the man was known as tatsuya ichihashi and he had been running after lindsay for the entire duration back home when he finally caught up with her he had a proposal to make and despite a strange performance the offer was simple and innocent enough tatsuya asked lindsay if she'd be interested in providing him english lessons he felt like he needed a little

bit of help with the language they could meet in a cafe and he'd pay her generously by the hour lindsay politely refused her work schedule was busy enough and the time she did have off was on her own terms having fun tatsuya was disappointed but he did seem to accept her answer it was here though that he asked her one final strange question he was thirsty after pretty much chasing lindsay throughout the streets of chiba he asked her if she'd politely provide him a glass of water in her apartment lindsay was hesitant but reluctantly she

did allow him into the apartment sure he was a strange man and he did make her feel uncomfortable but she had two roommates this was a good opportunity to indirectly show the man that she did have company at all times and it was an opportunity for her friends to see his face should it ever come up again in the future they entered the apartment together and it was insider apartment while having his drink that he made the offer again it came with a price tag this time he'd paid lindsay 3 500 yen or 32 an

hour and the interaction would be strictly business this was an offer lindsay couldn't refuse although nova was helping her get by in tokyo she could do with some extra cash and this was easy money she agreed to his request deciding to meet him at a coffee shop a few days later tatsuya was appreciative and he thanked lindsay for the offer before he'd leave her apartment though he wanted to give her one last thing he whipped out a pen from his back pocket and grabbed some scrap paper and then he started scribbling something a few moments

later he handed her the note it was a sketch he had just drawn one of lindsay and along the sketch was his name and his phone number tatsuya ichihashi was a 28 year old man from the city of ichikawa also located in chiba prefecture he was born in gifu prefecture on the 5th of january 1979 and initially grew up there before moving to chiba he was born into a successful family his father was a medical doctor at a local hospital in chiba while his mother was also a professional dentist in his younger years tatsuya had

ambitions to follow his father's footsteps in becoming a medical doctor but when he failed his exams and was denied in advancing his studies he settled for degree from the department of horticulture he graduated from chiba university in 2005 and although he passed his degree relatively well tatia did not make effort to find any work instead he lived on an allowance of 100 000 yen or 920 a month from his parents and this is where we learn a little more about the dark half of tatsuya ichihashi tatsuya had no previous convictions with the law but he

had been the subject of an allegation of prior theft and injury allegedly he had assaulted a woman on the street during a robbery but the matter had been settled out of court it is alleged that his father paid the woman off with around 1 million yen or 10 000 he was also described as a loner with an obsession for physical fitness tatsuya regularly attended his local gym and he often cycled over 25 kilometers every day in addition to this tatsuya was known to be a little reclusive rebellious and had no intention to find any work

and with only 900 a month to get by were weekly sessions at 35 an hour really that sustainable back to lindsay's apartment though after handing her the sketch with his name and his number tatsia thanked lindsay for a time and the glass of water he wished her well until that meets a few days later fast forward several days and it is now saturday the 24th of march 2007. lindsay had contacted tatsuya a couple days prior and they'd arranged for their first english lesson in a local coffee shop cctv captured the two conversing while in the

queue to grab a drink lindsay seemed relatively relaxed but she did make clear steps backwards whenever tatsuya moved too close the pair sat and spoke ford is assumed to be a little over an hour and progress was good at the end of it though saturday awkwardly pointed out that he'd forgotten his money no worries he said only live half a mile down the road why don't you come by and grab your money and then be on your way lindsay agreed and so the two hopped into a taxi lindsay hadn't brought her bike with her that

day and she also had work later on in the afternoon so when she arrived at tatsuya she asked the taxi driver if he'd be so kind to wait for her he agreed and so lindsay followed tatsia into his apartment several minutes later though lindsay still hadn't returned that's a little strange the taxi driver thought but maybe she's had a change of plans no worries and so on that note he left completely forgetting about the incident lindsay failed to show up to work late that afternoon however and even worse she never made it back to her

apartment either her housemates already noting that she wasn't at work that day started to worry about lindsay they called to the police later that night to report her missing but saturday turned into sunday and sunday turned into monday the family and friends of lindsay back home in the united kingdom were already starting to grow worried over her radio silence it was only after monday though when she missed a second day of work that panic really started to set in the school contacted her parents to let them know that she had now missed two days in

a row and straight after that they contacted the police it was only then though that the police started taking lindsay's disappearance a little more seriously police search efforts started at lindsay's home and the housemates were the first to be interviewed and with luck they already had a suspect in mind they knew that lindsay went to see a man in a coffee shop shortly before she disappeared and she'd also left his sketch back in the apartment this was their first clue it was around 5 40 pm that two officers were dispatched to tatsuya's home but after

knocking on his door no one answered it his neighbours though were at home and kindly they let officers peer over from the balcony and into tatsia's living room there were no lights on in the property but there did appear to be somebody lurking around inside and weirdly enough his detachable bathtub had been moved from the bathroom to the balcony on a hunch the two officers called for backup they were worried that maybe lindsay was inside being held hostage and within the hour seven more officers arrived three hours and nine officers later and police were getting

ready to raid tatsuya's home it was then in a surprise moment that tatsuya opened his front door with a rucksack in their feet in that split moment of panic tatsuya stormed past police they tried to grab him but only managed to get his rucksack tatsuya himself slipped by they didn't manage to keep up with tatsuya either with the building's hallways being so narrow and confusing he managed to get by and with police officers lacking any radio equipment they lost all sight of the man so in the middle of tokyo city tatsuya vanished into the night

it was as if the man had literally disappeared into thin air because tatsuya was nowhere to be found police officers investigating his property just moments later would be in for a gruesome scene there they had found the naked body of lindsey hawker she was found buried in tatsia's detachable bathtub which he had moved himself to the balcony the tub had been filled with a mixture of sand and soil almost entirely covering lindsay with only her right hand emerging from the surface she had been bound and gagged with plastic ties and scarves and bruises were present

across her upper body in her final hour she had been subjected to an extended assault her possessions still scattered across the room along with the body sand and soil in the balcony bathtub it also contained a decomposing agent to speed up the process of decomposition and flower seeds were placed on top to disguise the bathtub as a flowerbed the seeds eventually would be feeding off lindsay's body to add to the harrowing discovery it was also strangely noted that tatsuya had shaved all of lindsay's hair off of her head police would also discover several wigs in

tatsu's apartment alleging that perhaps he was a cross-dresser this quickly became public knowledge and soon after rumors even started circulating to suggest that maybe tatsuya had killed lindsay to wear her hair as a wig by the next morning tatsu ichihashi was officially a wanted man across all of japan police distributed wanted posters across the city his face was shown across multiple news sites interviews given to anyone who may have potential information and raids were witnessed at locations of possible sightings of the suspect but despite all efforts just like a ghost tatia was nowhere to be

seen hardly any sightings of the man were reported over the following weeks in fact all of them turned into dead ends police were so keen to capture the suspects though that they decided to release photoshopped images of tatsuya wearing wigs just in case he was out in drag but tatsuya was good at remaining unnoticed in fact he was so good at evading the police that his disappearance turned from weeks into months into years and this frustrated lindsay's family because in addition to the relentless pain that they had to experience from the loss of their daughter

was the feeling that her killer got away it was not just that but they also felt that japanese police were growing lazy and sloppy in their investigations it angered lindsay's parents so much actually that just months after her death the two would travel to japan and single-handedly assist in raising awareness of lindsay's killer her father bill even met members of the japanese mafia the yakuza in a bar giving them two bottles of whiskey as a present before asking them for their help and as time went on japanese police soon found themselves in the center of

the spotlight how did nine police officers let one man slip by why did they take a month to quiz vital witnesses and did they know that their wanted poster had a picture seven years out of date police and the hawker family would slowly start to argue against each other and soon british and japanese media were involved too and while all of this was happening tatsuya was still out there he had actually traveled across most of japan during his time on the run ranging from aomori one of the most northern cities on japan's main island right

down to the southern island of okinawa tatsuya had remained unnoticed he even lived on a remote island in a concrete bunker at times to avoid detection too a year after lindsay's death in 2008 and right through 2009 tatsuya found himself in osaka located 250 miles west of tokyo osaka is a large port city and a commercial center to honshu it's known for its modern architecture nightlife and hearty street food it was during this time that tatsuya routinely lived in internet cafes and worked on construction sites to get by with the money that he could save

up he would put that towards plastic surgery to change his appearance and avoid being caught by the law however he had actually already changed his appearance through self-mutilation ever since becoming wanted by the law he'd cut off his moles used scissors to cut off part of his lower lip and eventually sued a thread through his nose to alter its shape by the summer of 2009 police were painfully desperate to find tatsia it was here that the national police agency raised the cash reward for information leading to the arrest of him from 1 million to 10

million yen they also released a new statement advising it was believed that tatsuya had plastic surgery performed to his face to alter his appearance and that people should be on the lookout for resemblances of tatsuya's special identifications and it worked because in october 2009 a plastic surgeon located in nagoya informed police that he believed that he had just worked on tatsuya tatsuya had foolishly accepted to take a before and after picture of his operation the same photos would be shared with police and eventually the world this rattled tetsuya he knew that the newly released photos

by police had blown his cover in fact it was so successful that one of his colleagues back at a construction site in osaka recognized him tatsuya knew that he had to get out of osaka and hide fast his plan was as he had done before in several other close calls fleet okinawa and take refuge in one of the abandoned concrete bunkers found across its many remote islands on the 10th of november 2009 he discreetly fled to osaka's ferry port three days of keeping his head low on a slow ferry takanawa and he would finally be

in a much safer position away from justice but before he could even reach the boat tatsuya's luck would finally run out a worker at the very port had actually recognized his face and informed security that this could very well be the ichihashi and they were right because only moments later tatsuya came face to face with a handful of officers they asked him for his name and at this stage he knew it was over he told them yes i am tatsuya ichihashi the game was over he was then formally arrested by police and was initially charged

with abandoning a body he would later be served two more warrants for rape and murder and it would take eight months for him to finally meet his jury on the 4th of july 2011 his trial began and with the outcome pretty certain from the very beginning deliberation wouldn't last long a lot of attention was focused on how japan's court system would punish tatsuya although japan does enforce the death penalty not a lot of single-person murderers find it to be their fate but tatsuya was a well-publicized man in the media and many voices supported the idea

during his trial tatsu admitted that he enticed lindsay into his apartment raped her and then strangled her because he feared neighbours would hear her scream and call the police on the 21st of july 2011 tatsuya ichihashi was officially sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of lindsay hawker and although lindsay's family had asked for the death penalty for tatsuya the court felt that the death penalty was not appropriate as he had no previous convictions and at the age of 32 there was still a chance that he could one day become rehabilitated the trial would not

come without its fair share of new devastation and pain to lindsay's family however not only would they have to relive her final moments again but they would also have to see new images of lindsay's body something they regret ever seeing following tatsuya's sentence lindsay's parents shared the following to state media we've waited a long time for today we've waited four and a half years for justice lindsay loved japan and you have not let her down ichihashi you have taken away a precious life destroyed a whole existence and stolen countless memories from us the verdict which

puts tatsu behind bars for life was welcomed by most people in the nation and tatsu himself accepting his own fate shortly before trial tatsu had actually authored and published a book confessing to lindsay's murder most of his biography describing how he'd spent two and a half years on the run and what he had to do to avoid detection the book which was named until i was arrested was offered with all royalties and profits to lindsay's family and over one hundred thousand copies would sell worldwide but lindsay's family rejected the offer and despite tatsuya's strange attempt

as a good deed nothing could bring them back their daughter lindsay was well loved successful cheerful and irreplaceable she was in the middle of an incredible experience abroad doing good by teaching others a valuable new skill and in the end it was a kindness that was used against her by a strange heartless man she will be daily missed by her parents her sisters and all of her friends [Music] thank you so much for watching another video today by coffee house crime and thank you for supporting me and my other videos too to all of you

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i'll be right here behind this camera waiting for you in the next one until then though look after each other [Music] goodbye you