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TOKYO (AFP) - The British family of an English teacher killed in Japan voiced frustration Tuesday at the police for failing to catch the suspect almost two years after her death.
Lindsay Ann Hawker's naked body was found on March 26, 2007 in a sand-filled bathtub on the balcony of suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi's apartment in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo, in a death which shocked Japan and Britain.
Nine Japanese police officers failed to catch Ichihashi as he burst out of his apartment barefoot. Ichihashi, now 30, has been on a police wanted list since, with his picture displayed on streets and railway stations.
The victim's mother, Julia Hawker, told reporters Tuesday that "there was one question that we all as a family asked ourselves on that day, and the same question keeps arising every single day of our lives.
"Why would somebody want to murder her? Why did nine policemen go to the apartment on the night she was murdered, and why did they wait outside so long before going in?" she told a Tokyo press conference.
She added: "Why and how did the nine policemen then let one barefoot man escape from the apartment? More importantly, why now, two years on... why haven't they caught him?"
The dead woman's father, Bill Hawker, said: "How many more times as a family do we have to return to Japan, and how many more pleas do we have to make before this evil man is caught?"
The parents and Lindsay's two sisters Lisa and Louise held the murdered Briton's picture in front of reporters and called for cooperation in keeping a high public profile on the case.
The father said Japanese police had told him they were closing the net around Ichihashi, but he added that "they told me no details whatsoever."
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