TOKYO — A Japanese man charged in the 2007 slaying of a British woman admits in a book he wrote in jail that he took her life and repeatedly attempted cosmetic surgery on himself to change his appearance during his 2½ years as a fugitive.
Tatsuya Ichihashi, who is to stand trial later this year in the alleged murder and rape of Lindsay Ann Hawker, doesn't describe the crime or his motives in the book released Wednesday, instead focusing on his life at large. He does apologize to her and her family, saying the book was intended as "a gesture of contrition for the crime I committed."
Hawker, 22, was found dead in a sand-filled bathtub on the balcony of Ichihashi's apartment in Chiba, east of Tokyo, in March 2007. Ichihashi was one of her students at an English language school.
Police arrested Ichihashi, 32, in Osaka, in western Japan, on Nov. 10, 2009. In police questioning, he admitted assaulting Hawker, but denied intention to kill her. He has been in custody since.
The high-profile case captured attention in Japan and Britain as the Hawkers frequently visited the country where she taught and made tearful appeals for public support for his capture.
Desperately seeking to locate Ichihashi, investigators had offered the reward of 10 million yen ($121,000) for tips leading to his arrest. Police did not disclose who received the money.
Ichihashi said he hoped to give royalties from the book, titled "Until the Arrest," to the Hawker family, and if rejected, use it for a good cause, his lawyers said in a statement.
While at large, Ichihashi said he was in constant fear of arrest and obsessed with cosmetic surgery while traveling through 23 prefectures (states) across Japan, from Aomori in the north to the southern island of Okinawa.
"I was so scared that I ran away," he wrote in a 238-page book released by publishing house Gentosha, its cover depicting Ichihashi's drawing of himself — a man wearing a baseball cap and a surgical mask, looking down and carrying a knapsack.
"I ended up hurting not only the victim but also (the feelings of) many other people," he wrote.
After wandering around Tokyo, he drifted north to Aomori prefecture, where he lived homeless, before embarking on a pilgrimage tour of temples on the southwestern island of Shikoku, wishing Hawker could "come back to life."
When he started running out of money, he worked several construction jobs, in Okinawa and the western cities of Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto for a total of more than two years, earning nearly 1 million yen ($12,100) — enough to cover the cost of plastic surgery twice.
He also attempted facial surgery himself. In one occasion he partly cut his lower lip with scissors to make it thinner. He also sliced off a pair of moles on the left cheek — prominent in a wanted photo of him released by police — with a box cutter.
He also traveled four times to a tiny island off Okinawa, where he stayed in an abandoned hut, living on fruit and fish he caught and sometimes snakes — a hideout that has never been reported.
Ichihashi carefully avoided monitoring cameras at shops, and avoided eye contact with anyone. When there was any doubt, he immediately packed up and left. He never contacted his families or friends.
Work, mostly demolition of buildings, was tough, he said, but "this is the price I must pay. (Hawker) had to suffer more pain."
"I took Lindsey's life, that fact does not change," he wrote.
While at large, he read "The Catcher in the Rye" in English, the Harry Potter series that Hawker recommended, and books by well-known Japanese author Haruki Murakami, including "Kafka on the shore" and "1Q84."
He said he neither had courage to turn himself in or kill himself to take responsibility for Hawker's death.
Days after his second cosmetic surgery to alter his mouth, he saw TV news about his hospital visit and panicked, apparently after the hospital reported his visit to police.
"I froze. My heart raced," he wrote.
He was arrested in Osaka while waiting for a ferry to Okinawa.
He refused to eat for two weeks after the arrest, "but I could not die," he said. "Before and after the escape, all I cared about was myself, after all."
Gentosha official Kanako Oshima said the book "could be a valuable document from criminal psychology standpoint" but declined to comment further.