After two years and seven months on the run, it was murder suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi's repeated bids for cosmetic surgery that finally got the police on his trail after many previous failed attempts.

Ichihashi, 30, suspected of slaying Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker in 2007 in Chiba Prefecture, finally left a trail when he appeared at a clinic in Nagoya for plastic surgery in late October. Later, it was revealed that he had attempted to have another operation in a hospital in Fukuoka Prefecture.

With the photograph of his new altered face — double-fold eyelids, a higher nose bridge and thinner lips — taken by the Nagoya clinic released last week, people around him began to notice him.