Letter impersonating Lucie

The letter purportedly from Lucie Blackman was a misleading communication delivered to the Azabu police around July 20, 2000, as the search for her continued. Its instruction to stop looking, and the evidence of its awkward English, made it a possible attempt to divert the investigation rather than a reliable account of Lucie’s whereabouts.

The Letter and Its Claim

The letter was postmarked from Chiba Prefecture, where it claimed Lucie was undergoing spiritual training. Addressed to both the police and her family, it urged them to give up the search. The message offered an explanation for her absence, but its request that those searching for her stop was itself a reason to treat it cautiously.

Police Suspicion

The Azabu police considered two possibilities: that the letter was a cheap prank or that Lucie’s assailant had sent it to divert the investigation. An officer on the squad, whom Jake Adelstein knew from the Fourth District, showed him the letter and asked for his opinion. The account does not establish who wrote it; at this point, its origin remained uncertain even as investigators weighed its possible purpose.

Language as Evidence

Adelstein judged that the writer was Japanese and was posing as a native English speaker. He based that assessment on the misuse of the articles “a” and “the,” stiff prose, and a tendency toward double negatives. His experience teaching English conversation in Japan had made him familiar with such features of Japanese English, which the narrative also calls Japlish. After he explained his reasoning, the officer—nicknamed Googly by his fellow officers—seemed convinced. The letter’s attempt to sound like Lucie thus became a clue against its credibility, though it did not by itself identify the writer.