Pet pig’s accused killer denies any involvement
Joseph Calarruda says he doesn't know the location of Mililani
A 28-year-old Waianae man steadfastly denied being at a lychee farm in Mililani Mauka on Oct. 22, 2006, where a pet pig was cornered by dogs and killed by a trespassing hunter.
Joseph Calarruda, on trial in Circuit Court for theft of livestock for killing the domesticated pet pig named Porky, testified in his defense yesterday that he was with his girlfriend at her parents' Waianae home for a late steak dinner at the time of the incident.
The case was turned over to the jury late yesterday.
During questioning by Deputy Prosecutor Scott Bell, Calarruda, who was born and raised on the Waianae Coast, insisted he doesn't know where Mililani is, and had no reason to be in the area that night.
Last week, his girlfriend, Rickelle Silva, backed Calarruda's testimony, saying he was with her all evening.
"It was physically impossible for Joseph Calarruda to be in the Mililani Mauka area, because he was in Waianae," said Deputy Public Defender Travis Stephens.
Silva also denied being in Mililani Mauka or being pulled over by a police officer in the area just hours after the killing. She testified she was nine months pregnant at the time and did not drive alone because she could have given birth at any time.
The defense argued that the description of the driver on the citation did not match Silva's height and weight and would have noted that she was obviously pregnant, which it didn't.
Police officers on duty the evening Porky was killed pulled over a female driving a white Ford truck not far from the lychee farm. The driver gave the officer the name Ruth Frankel, but did not have any ID nor a driver's license.
The officer later identified a photo of Rickelle Silva as the same female he pulled over that evening.
During the stop, a Nissan truck with three men inside drove past. Officer Mei King pulled that truck over a short distance away for having an expired decal and because it was the same truck that officers had seen parked unoccupied in tall grass near the lychee farm.
The driver, Henry Kapihe, was cited. The truck passenger identified himself as Joseph Calarruda and told King that the truck they were riding in was registered to his girlfriend. He also noted that his girlfriend was the same female who had been pulled over by another officer down the road.
The third man in the truck bed identified himself to police as Don Pogtis.
An acquaintance of Calarruda, Pogtis testified for the defense last week, claiming he was the one who killed Porky, the six-year-old pet pig raised from birth by Aaron O'Brien, the manager of the lychee farm. Pogtis testified that Calarruda wasn't a hunter and was not with them that night and that the passenger in the truck was a Roland Eguchi, not Calarruda.
He also testified that the female who had been stopped in the white Ford pickup further down the street was not Silva.
Pogtis testified that the dogs ended up inside the fenced property and he went to retrieve them because they were cornered in the carport by the pig they had been stalking for four miles.
Last week, Mike Chabala, who rented one of the homes on the property, testified he heard Porky squealing and rushed outside to witness a male trespasser kill Porky in the carport. He later identified the intruder in a photo as Calarruda.
Chabala's wife and her mother, who were also home at the time, also witnessed the killing and later picked out Calarruda's photo in a lineup as the man they saw kill Porky. Although it was dark, the carport was illuminated by sensor lights.