Tokyo victim was stripped, beaten and strangled

The man wanted for killing a British woman in a Tokyo flat had charmed her by sketching her portrait, police in Japan have said.

Lindsay Hawker was beaten, stripped then strangled before being buried in a bathtub of sand, they added.

It also emerged that chief suspect Tatsuya Ishihashi had been warned in the past over claims that he had stalked a young woman.

Miss Hawker's naked body was found in Ishihashi's apartment on Monday.

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Ishihashi, who is 28 and unemployed, saw the English language teacher in a bar on the evening of Tuesday March 20 and followed her home on foot when she left by bicycle, Deputy Superintendent Takeo Terajima said.

When she arrived at her flat, he knocked at her door and asked if she would give him private English lessons.

Ishihashi asked if he could come into her apartment, and as she had a flatmate with her, she felt secure enough to let him in.

He then tried to charm her by saying he would like to sketch a portrait of her. "He drew a picture of her in felt-tip pen and gave it to her at the same time, and then gave her his home address and phone number," said the officer, adding that the suspect appeared to have been "obsessed" with Miss Hawker.

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It was the address that led police to his flat on Monday night. The victim had left it on a table in her flat.

She had been reported missing by a flatmate after being out of contact for two days and had also failed to turn up for work at the Nova Intercultural Institute language school.

Miss Hawker, from Brandon, Warwickshire, was beaten then strangled, a post-mortem examination revealed.

According to a Japanese newspaper, her hands and feet were bound with a type of plastic cord normally used by gardeners.

Ishihashi, whose father is a doctor and mother a dentist, had been a student of horticulture at Chiba University.

A year ago, he was given a police caution for following a female student at the university and stealing money from the coffee shop where she worked, officers said.

However, Miss Hawker's friends and the Japanese press have questioned the progress of the police investigation.

Eight officers went to Ishihashi's apartment on Monday evening to question him about his connection with Miss Hawker, the papers said.

One of them asked him: "Are you Mr Ishihashi?" The suspect confirmed that he was but was able to grab a backpack containing clothes and money and flee using the emergency fire escape.

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Lindsay's sisters Lisa and Louise said their sister was 'extraordinary in so many ways ... She made so many people smile'

Police are hunting 28-year-old Tatsuya Ichihashi, who fled the scene of the crime when confronted

"At the time we had not seen the body so we were not sure what was going on, so it would not be fair to say that he 'escaped'," said Mr Terajima.

Robert Hughes, owner of the Hippy Dippy Do bar, 200 yards from where her body was found, said her friends "had to light a rocket" under the police to get an investigation under way, and that the authorities had only "stumbled across" Ishihashi as a suspect by "dumb luck".

"If Lindsay had not left the note on the table of her flat with the guy's name and address on it, then the police would never have got a name to chase the suspect with," said Mr Hughes, who is originally from Essex.

"Her friends were frustrated when she went missing. The police did not seem to be all that interested."

Miss Hawker had visited the bar frequently since arriving Japan in October, although Mr Hughes said she never drank too much and always went home early. "She would come in with friends after work and just hang out. She was just getting away from it and watching the football."

Miss Hawker's father and boyfriend spent yesterday afternoon at her flat collecting her belongings. Her body was released into their custody at 3pm local time and taken directly to Narita Airport, Tokyo. They are expected to fly home with her today.

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