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Ronnie Ching a
legendary crime figure

Ronnie Ching was the first underworld hit man I ever met. While I feel sympathy for his numerous victims and their families and I don't condone his brutal acts in any way, I have to say I felt a bit sad when I heard he had died Saturday in prison.

Ronnie Ching was part of a unique time in Hawaii organized crime history. Colorful characters could be found on both sides of the law. Viewed through the nostalgic haze of a former police reporter, crime in the '60s, '70s and early '80s seemed to have jumped off of the pages of a "Hawaii Five-0" script. It was before crystal meth took Honolulu in its icy grasp to the point where every crime today is seemingly tethered to that hateful drug.

In earlier days, organized crime revolved around gambling, heroin, pot and protection rackets. And Ronnie Ching, a 300-pound heroin addict, was a ruthless enforcer for the Hawaii mob.

I was 16 years old when I first ran across Ronnie Ching's handiwork. My family lived in Aiea. We were on our way to church one morning when we noticed a lot of police cars outside a house not far from ours. It was 1970, and a state senator, Larry Kuriyama, had been shot to death in his garage. I had no idea that 15 years later, I would sit down with the man who did it.

As a professional hit man, Ronnie Ching knocked off a lot of people in fairly dramatic fashion. He buried one of his victims alive on a beach. He shot another one off of a bar stool at a Kapiolani Boulevard lounge with a machine gun in broad daylight.

But his big mistake was killing Charles Marsland III, the 19-year-old son of then-Deputy City Corporation Counsel Chuck Marsland.

Marsland, a tough-talking lawman in the mold of Gary Cooper in "High Noon," made it his life's goal to find the man who killed his son and put him behind bars.

MARSLAND BECAME Honolulu's first elected prosecutor. He brought in a tenacious former cop, as big as a house and owner of a black belt in karate to run a special crime unit in the prosecutor's office. He was Don Carstensen, and as legend has it, he happened to have worked on interisland barges at one point with Ronnie Ching.

Don and his handpicked team of "untouchables" strode through Chinatown like they owned the place. They busted down doors of illegal card games and took on all comers, including the "yakuza," Japanese organized crime groups that were setting up shop in Hawaii. As prosecutor, Marsland went after the usual murderers, rapists, robbers and porn dealers. But the murder of his son was always on his mind. He didn't know a run-of-the-mill underworld killing on Maunakea Street would lead to the capture of his son's killer.

It's hard to separate legend and myth from what actually happened in those days, but here is how Ronnie Ching reputedly was caught:

A local crime figure was found shot to death on Maunakea Street, across from a lei stand. Don knew of a continuing gambling game above the lei stand. He and a member of his crew allegedly broke into the room and held the gamblers at gunpoint. Don began tearing up cash from the tables. He said someone in that room had to know who had killed the gentleman on the street, and he was going to keep ripping up money until someone told him who did it. Folklore has it that he tore up between $25,000 and $80,000 in cash.

I don't know if any of the gamblers talked, but it is said that the game was under the protection of Ronnie Ching. Feeling that Don had embarrassed him, Ronnie called him and asked for a sit-down. It was generally thought that if Carstensen met with Ching, he'd be killed.

But the two met for lunch. They began to talk. They met some more times, and incredibly, Ronnie told Don all about his life of crime. Don convinced him to become a government witness, and Ronnie, apparently fed up with the underworld, agreed.

In the end he pleaded guilty to killing four people, including Marsland's son. The plea deal fell through when a judge ordered him to serve life in prison.

Then, in 1985, before he was to go into the slammer, he asked to talk to the only two newspaper reporters he trusted: Jim Dooley from the Honolulu Advertiser and myself.

That's how I came to sit across from the first underworld hit man I ever met.

At that time he told me he felt bad for the people he killed and betrayed by organized crime figures.

For the next 20 years he wasted away in prison, his heroin addiction taking a toll on his liver. The 300-pound hit man shrunk to only 140 pounds. Last week, the once fiercest hit man in Hawaii died alone in his prison cell.