The man suspected of killing Lindsay Hawker, the English teacher found strangled in a Tokyo suburb on Monday, drew a portrait of her just days before she was murdered.

Tatsuya Ichihashi, the subject of a national manhunt who was stalking Ms Hawker, handed her the sketch with his address and phone number on it when he followed her home.

Detective Akira Ebihara yesterday said that the teacher then agreed to give Ichihashi, 28, a private English lesson.

Ichihashi fled from police on Monday when they arrived at his apartment to question him over Ms Hawker’s disappearance. The horticultural student ran barefoot from nine police officers and has been missing ever since. Moments later, police found the body of the woman, from Brandon, near Coventry, in an earth filled bath in the apartment, located in Ichikawa, east Tokyo.

Ms Hawker, 22, and her expatriate colleagues at the language school in Tokyo where she worked had grown concerned at Ichihashi’s attentions.

Fellow teacher Toby Wheeler, 30, said: “We all told Lindsay not to be so trusting but she thought the best of everyone.”

Bill Hawker, the victim’s father, took formal possession of her body yesterday after the conclusion of a post-mortem examination. It showed that her hands and ankles had been tied with plastic cord, and she was buried in horticultural soil.

There was speculation the murder, echoing violent Manga comics which are extremely popular in Japan, may have been copied from the cartoons.

Piles of the comics, which feature stories of rape and torture, were found at Ichihachi’s flat.The search for the suspected killer continued in vain yesterday as Japanese police raided a suburban sex motel following a reported sighting. Twenty officers went to the Hotel Chateau, a “love hotel” in NishiFunabashi, east of Tokyo, where rooms are rented to couples by the hour. After a search of the premises, broadcast on Japanese TV, police emerged without their target.

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