2 disappearances show eerie links
Cases 16 years apart involve property given to the same individual
Law enforcement officials are investigating whether the disappearances of a Honolulu man and a Kauai man 16 years apart are connected.
The son of the 51-year-old Honolulu man who disappeared in 1990 is hoping others will come forward with evidence about the theft of money, property and disappearance of his father, and of Kauai man John Elwin.
When retired Honolulu Detective Bertha Nahoopii heard the case of missing Kauai man John Elwin, she immediately called Michael Young, whose father, Arthur, disappeared in October 1990.
"The feeling struck me this guy's doing it again 15 years later," Michael Young said. "The two cases sound like the same situation, the same MO, maybe not identical," but similar.
Both disappeared in the Philippines, both were involved in polo and both had properties essentially transferred to the same man: Henry Calucag, also known as Hank Jacinto.
Calucag, who is being held without bail in Honolulu, is charged with first-degree theft, first-degree identity theft and second-degree forgery involving Elwin's property.
Elwin has been missing since early May after a trip to the Philippines.
No charges were ever filed in the Young case.
After Arthur Young's 1990 disappearance, Michael Young alleged, Calucag was seen on videotape withdrawing cash from automated teller machines using his father's bank card and fraudulently used his father's business checks, and even took his grandmother's Social Security checks.
Yet despite the evidence, police said they could not do anything because "how did they know that my father didn't give Henry permission to withdraw the money?" he said. He even hired a private investigator to try to stop Calucag and girlfriend Debbie Anagaran from taking over the house. They even sold off his grandmother's and father's personal possessions in a garage sale.
Young, then 33, ended up paying for his grandmother's care home costs until her death since she was not receiving her Social Security checks, and his father was missing.
"Hopefully, now they can prove something," Michael Young said.
Nahoopii said police ran into a dead end after discovering the elder Young transferred the property to Anagaran and left, supposedly with Calucag, and police had exhausted avenues of investigation.
Calucag and Anagaran have been living in what was Arthur Young's mother's house in St. Louis Heights since his disappearance in 1990. The attorney general's office and the Honolulu police are investigating the 16-year-old cold case.
The city Prosecutor's Office and Kauai police are investigating the Elwin case.
Michael Young estimates the three-quarter-acre property is worth $2 million, and the city assesses it at $1.3 million.