Celebrity inmate Tatsuya Ichihashi, who killed Lindsay Hawker, doing time with better-than-average creature comforts

Nagano Prison, home to some 800 penitents, is said to be particularly popular among its inmates, owing to the well-sealed building's warmth, with no wind whistling in through cracks.

One of this prison's best-known residents is convicted killer Tatsuya Ichihashi, 45, and presently into the 13th year of a life sentence handed down for the March 2007, rape and murder of English teacher Lindsey Ann Hawker, then 22, in his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. 

Ichihashi became a celebrity of sorts after he initially managed to escape, in his bare feet, from no fewer than nine policemen who converged on the crime scene. He spent the next two years and seven months on the run, and his time as a fugitive received sensational coverage in the nation's tabloid press. 

Despite having undergone cosmetic surgery to change his facial features, the lanky Ichihashi, who at 181 cm stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, was finally spotted at the Osaka Nanko Ferry Terminal and arrested on November 10, 2009, 15 years to the day of this article in Daily Shincho (Nov 10). 

The Hawker family had appealed to the court for the death penalty, but because Ichihashi had no previous convictions and because he was  32 years old at the time, the court considered rehabilitation possible. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2011.

Daily Shincho provides an update to previous coverage, with added information from a 44-year-old former inmate named Hiroshi Yamauchi (a pseudonym), who had served 14 months in the same Nagano facility. 

During Yamauchi's time in stir, Ichihashi was assigned to work at the prison's Factory 10. 

"I'm not sure what kind of work it did, but one of the guys from that factory, who was serving four years for fraud, got reassigned to the laundry, where I worked," Yamauchi tells Shincho Daily. "He told me that Ichihashi was careful not to get too close to other prisoners -- he would only hang out with people he trusted."

Prison scuttlebutt has it that Ichihashi does not lack for material support, to the degree that it's permitted. 

"It was taboo for us to talk about money, but according to a friend of mine who worked in the prison's accounting section, Ichihashi had plenty," said Yamauchi. "I don't know the exact amount, but his supporters are believed to have frequently transferred tens of thousands of yen to him. I suppose he has about ¥1 million saved up."

Such money can be used by prisoners to purchase various commodities, including food, clothing and sundry items. 

The practice of sympathizers sending gifts to notorious killers is not uncommon. Both Satoshi Uematsu, currently on death row after being found guilty of killing 19 people at a Sagamihara facility for the disabled in July 2016, and Tetsuya Yamagami, accused assassin of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022, have attracted supporters who sent in monetary donations. 

"Ichihashi seems to have many fans like that," noted Yamauchi. 

What's more, Ichihashi's parents are reported to unfailingly visit their son every month, at which time they also supply him with additional funds.

"The 30-minute visiting periods get deducted from prisoners' salaries, but Ichihashi has enough money, so he doesn't seem to mind," said Yamauchi. "Not only that, he frequently buys new pants, socks, and other items and seems to use them almost as if they were disposable. He keeps about seven sets of clothes, enough for a week, and it seems that he replaces them with new ones every month or so."

Ichihashi will not become eligible for parole until many years in the future. According to current Ministry of Justice guidelines concerning prisoners sentenced to life terms, consideration for parole does not begin until at least 30 years after the start of the sentence. And even then, paroles are granted sparingly. In 2021, out of 1,725 ​​people serving life terms in Japan, only nine received such treatment. The average length of incarceration for such convicts was 32 years and 10 months. 

So while his time spent inside prison might be slightly more cozy than the average inmate, Ichihashi, now age 45, still has many more years to wait before any possibility of release.

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