Defense wants murder
By Rod Thompson
confession thrown out
Star-BulletinHILO -- Tetsuya "Grizzly" Yamada walked from the house where two people lay dead, holding a shotgun in two hands over his head, retired police officer Clyde Victorine testified.
A moment later Yamada said, "That's what I shot them with."
That statement, described in court this week, and other statements quoted in court documents indicate that Yamada, 61, confessed several times to the 1996 killing of his ex-wife, Carla Russell, 50, and his stepdaughter Rachel DeCambra, 23.
But his statements were made before his rights were read to him in the evening following the 5 p.m. shootings.
Defense attorney Michael Ebesugawa is asking Judge Greg Nakamura to exclude the statements from Yamada's upcoming trial for first- and second-degree murder.
A hearing on the statements is scheduled to continue Dec. 3. Jury selection has begun, but the trial isn't expected until January.
Victorine testified he had responded to an emergency call Sept. 29, 1996, in the Waiakea Uka area of Hilo when he saw one person lying apparently dead.
Then he saw Yamada approaching, his wife Regina Haili in front of him, apparently trying to shield him.
Haili was telling Victorine to shoot her, but Victorine said he told her he just wanted to find out what happened.
Haili said Yamada's ex-wife and stepdaughter were dead. Yamada then made the statement that he killed them with the shotgun, Victorine said.
Yamada was a "good" suspect at that point, but Haili and her son Dwayne, who had been there earlier, were also suspects, he said.
Documents show that Yamada also made statements to officer Anthony Duarte on the way to the police station and at the station.
"I shot them. My problems are over. I no like make trouble for anybody," the documents say he told Duarte.
After that, then-Sgt. Edwin Tanaka read him his rights.
Yamada told Tanaka he heard laughter from the warehouse on the property next to his house and heard people calling him names.
"They were calling me f------ Jap, which they always do," he told Tanaka.
He said he must have lost his head, loaded his shotgun and walked to the warehouse, but doesn't remember anything more until he heared a telephone ringing and saw the women dead.
Yamada told Tanaka he owns about 30 firearms.
"Guns fascinate me," he said.
He said he was taking pain killers and an antidepressant called Siniquant.
"It's supposed to calm my brains down," he said.
Several psychiatrists have examined Yamada and he was given at least one brain scan. The findings have not been made public.
