Tatsuya Ichihashi, suspected in the murder of English teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker, was sent to prosecutors Thursday.

Ichihashi, 30, was turned over to the Chiba District Public Prosecutor's Office by Gyotoku Police Station in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, technically on suspicion of abandoning Hawker's body in a sand-filled bathtub on the balcony of his Ichikawa apartment in March 2007.

Hawker, a 22-year-old British woman, worked for the Nova language-school company. She is believed to have died from suffocation, possibly by strangulation, and numerous marks on her face indicated she had been beaten, according to the police.