Maybe I’m being overly-sensitive here, or just plain naive, but is it wise to publish information about an ongoing criminal investigation?

The Mainichi published an article yesterday stating that Lindsay Ann Hawker’s suspected murderer, Tatsuya Ichihashi, is hiding out in Ikebukuro (a shopping and entertainment district in northern Tokyo).

The article can be found here.

The article states that a man who looks very similar to Ichihashi has been hanging out in Ikebukuro, patronizing a pachinko parlor, a hotel and some restaurants. It was also reported that “a large number of investigators” have been sent to Ikebukuro in response to the some 40 tips that have been received by the Chiba Prefectural Police. The article also seems to indicate that Ichihashi has been living in Ikebukuro since just after the murder last spring.

Context: Just over a year ago, the naked body of Lindsay Ann Hawker, a teacher in Chiba, was found in a bathtub filled with sand on the balcony of Tatsuya Ichihashi’s apartment. Following up on a tip and a missing-person report, the Chiba Prefectural Police sent nine of its finest to question Ichihashi. Even though they had him cornered in his own home, he managed to out-maneuver all of them, bolt from the apartment and outrun them in his bare feet. He has eluded apprehension to this day.

Lindsay’s family has done an amazing job of keeping this case in the spotlight, and they come to Tokyo every so often to get information about the investigation and remind people that Ichihashi could kill again.

Back to the Mainichi article: it’s difficult to verify the veracity of the information provided in the article (English and Japanese versions of the article can be viewed by clicking the link above) as the Mainichi reporter, Yamamoto, declined to cite any of his sources. It seems possible that information already available to the public, including a couple old images of the suspect, was cobbled together into a news report.

If there is a comprehensive police stakeout of Ikebukuro in place at the moment, then publication of this information is obviously not helpful unless Ichihashi is tired of running and is actually trying to get caught.

Of course, we have seen how ineffective police stakeouts can be, so maybe it’s good to tune some additional sets of eyeballs in to the hunt.

If you didn’t take a moment to click on the link above, I’ll fill you in to what went on during that “ineffective police stakeout”. After murdering a 72-year-old with a knife in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki, Masahiro Kanagawa flew under the radar for a couple of days by staying at a hotel near Akihabara station in Tokyo. The police, hoping to grab him if and when he made his way back to his hometown, stationed eight plainclothes officers around Arakawaoki train station. The problem was that none of them were given radios or weapons. Consequently, they were not able to communicate with each other when Kanagawa did in fact arrive on the Joban line, knives in hand, and proceeded to stab eight people, including one officer, before eventually calling police from an unmanned police station notifying them that he wished to turn himself in.

If you just slapped your own forehead in disbelief, let me assure you that you’re not alone. It’s probably safe to say that Kanagawa would have gotten away if he hadn’t turned himself in.

Anyway, a phone number for people with information (047-397-0110) has been provided. However, if you have information to report, I recommend doing so in Japanese.

But it seems to me that the publication of this information, if its contents are true, is likely to promote either vigilante justice (there’s at least one group of non-Japanese residents that has taken it upon themselves to search for Ichihashi) or Ichihashi’s movement to another bustling locale.

However, let’s not forget the possibility that this is merely old information that has been discredited and abandoned by the Chiba Prefectural Police department but became news fodder so that the cops could look like they were making headway while the Hawker family was in town earlier this week. Or, perhaps more likely, that this is just a reporter from the police press club that is simply doing his job. He had this information for quite some time, but was finally told that he could print it this week. Either way, it’s probably safe to assume that whenever the police started to suspect that Ichihashi was hanging out in Ikebukuro, it would have been at least a few months ago.

If that’s the case, then let’s just hope that this press release is part of some larger police-controlled misinformation campaign that is designed to get Ichihashi to drop his guard and make a mistake.