By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
News crews gather outside the Mauna Luan condominium
towers in Hawaii Kai yesterday, the scene of
a beating death. (See below.)

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Hawaii Kai man 30th
slaying victim of year

Oahu's total has already passed
the toll for all of last year, with
three more months to go

By Linda Aragon
Star-Bulletin

Property crimes are down, but people are killing each other at an alarming rate this year.

Just yesterday morning, the beaten body of a 58-year-old man was found in his Hawaii Kai condominium, and police today continue to search for suspects.

With three months left in the year, this year's 30 killings to date already exceed last year's total of 29. And that number may rise if a seasonal increase in homicide cases occurs from October through the first of the year. The homicide count is only deaths investigated by Oahu police and does not include traffic-related deaths, or deaths on federal property, which are handled by the FBI.

Police Detective Anderson Hee, acting Homicide Division head, said drugs are the reason for most of the killings.

Hee said that 14 of the first 22 murders this year were drug-related. Further study, he said, will probably find more killings tied to drugs.

"I know there was more that was drug-related after that," Hee said.

The department's seven homicide detectives typically investigate three to five murders a month.

In June and August, detectives investigated six killings.

In a single week in September, police investigated three stabbing deaths and the shooting of a 27-year-old Kalihi man, Jose Bueno.

Then just last Thursday, San Francisco police arrested a 46-year-old man suspected in the previous night's shooting death of William Noa Jr., 33, at Lahilahi Park in Makaha.

"We normally solve more than 90 percent of the cases," Hee said. But with the rash of killings, more than 10 percent of recent murders remain unsolved.

In the past decade, the highest number of murders on Oahu was in 1989, when 43 people were killed. In 1995, 38 people were killed, and in 1994, 34 people were killed.

Hee said advances in emergency medical care have contributed greatly to reducing homicides by making many attempted murders unsuccessful.

"A lot of people get shot and stabbed and they don't die," said Hee. "Medicine is more advanced. In the '70s it was high. There were 66 murders a year. We're way down."

But, he cautioned, "there's still violence right now."

Kenneth Brewer

Police ask help in homicide case

A 58-year-old man who was beaten to death in the bedroom of his Hawaii Kai apartment may have returned home in the company of someone he met in Waikiki, police said.

Police are asking anyone who may have seen Kenneth Brewer after 9 p.m. Tuesday to call homicide detectives Anderson Hee or Larry Tamashiro (529-3115) or CrimeStoppers (955-8300).

Brewer, who worked for Sheraton Hotels from 1969 to 1987, left his home wearing an aloha shirt, shorts and slippers. He drove a four-door, white Lexus with license number FFZ-916.

Brewer may have returned home between 3 and 4 a.m.

His partially clad body was found face up on the floor yesterday at 6:40 a.m. by a roommate.

Police have recovered fingerprints in the apartment at 531 Hahaione St., Hee said.

"The medical examiner's office determined the cause of death as a blunt trauma to the head," Hee added.

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From rape to robbery and
forgery to fraud, most types of crime
dropped from July to August

Robberies -- the bulk of violent crimes, said police statistician Nathan Matsuoka -- are down from last year.

"We're almost 100 less cases," said Lt. Cliff Takesono, head of the robbery division. He attributed the drop to a few key arrests of purse snatchers who mainly targeted tourists in Waikiki.

Takesono said during the height of the purse-snatching crimes last year, police responded to two or three purse snatchings a day.

Since four men linked to the robberies have been arrested and are being prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office, "The purse-snatching series has come to a screeching halt," Takesono said.

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Can you help police
solve these slayings?

By Linda Aragon
Star-Bulletin

At first, police didn't know the identity of the man found dead, shot twice in the head, on Tantalus Drive near Puu Ohia trail -- much less who shot him.

They later learned it was Chih Kai Pan, 19, a Kapiolani Community College student, after releasing a sketch of the dead man and a detailed illustration of a ring he wore. Someone who recognized the ring called Pan's father.

Pan had moved here from Taiwan a few years before while in high school. Honolulu Police Detective Anderson Hee said the death was drug-related.

But, like several other murders in recent months, Pan's killing remains unsolved. Police have sought public help in identifying who was with him on Aug. 16, the night of his killing.

Hee said it's difficult to get information from witnesses when drugs are involved.

"They're more hesitant to talk because they're involved in criminal activity," Hee said. "They don't want to implicate themselves by being associated with the person, so you don't have many witnesses coming forward."

Among the other unsolved murders on Oahu this year:

On June 24, police found the body of 33-year-old Lyons Joseph Welch, from Hauula, who had been estranged from his family for three years and considered missing. Welch's skeletal remains, found near Pupukea Road on the North Shore, indicated he may have died from a beating, from several months to a year ago, the medical examiner said.

The FBI acknowledged there is suspicion of marijuana patches growing on federal land in Kipapa Gulch, where 21-year-old Scott Richard Shields was shot in an abandoned military bunker. But there are no suspects in the July 21 killing.

Police have asked for help in identifying the men seen walking to a bus stop with Lah-huh-bate-soot or Larry Red Eagle, 25, about an hour and 20 minutes before he was found shot in the head on Waipio Point Access Road. Detectives said Red Eagle was seen drinking beer with a group of men shortly before he boarded a bus in the Pupukahi Street area of Waipahu about 11 p.m. Aug. 6.

Red Eagle was an American Indian from Tacoma, Wash. His sister, Ronica Bennett, in a telephone interview from Tacoma, said it's hard knowing her brother is gone while his murderer walks free. "Everyone here has so much rage. But I just want the person caught," Bennett said.

Virginia Lameg has similar thoughts about the killing of Her brother Virgelio P. Gonzales, 43, in Whitmore Village.

His body was found Sept. 10 after he was stabbed and thrown into a stream bed behind Dole Pineapple Plantation, where he had worked on-and-off since moving from the Philippines about four years ago, Lameg said.

Gonzales was last seen leaving his Whitmore Village home on Sept. 5. by his son. Jonal Gonzales said his father had eaten dinner, then left with a friend to buy cigarettes.

Lameg said, "He always goes out, and my mom says he come home. But this time, he no come home."

Anyone with information on the murders can call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300. All calls are anonymous, and CrimeStoppers will pay $1,000 for any information leading to the arrest and charging of suspects in these killings.

LIST OF OAHU MURDER VICTIMS
THIS YEAR, PER HONOLULU
POLICE DEPARTMENT

1. Stella Jensen 2. Arlene Marzan 3. Bernard Graff 4. Teddy Barcenas 5. Julia Kealoha 6. Robin Morris 7. Patricia Ogawa 8. Clint Fleishour 9. Francis King 10. David Eli 11. Paul Ulbrich 12. Johnsey Jajo 13. Bongak Koja 14. Lyons Joseph Welch 15. Scott Richard Shields

16. Billy Cumpston 17. Myron Nakao 18. Thomas Culkin 19. Rudy Saladino 20. Larry Red Eagle 21. William Bass 22. Tino Fernandez 23. Chih Kai Pan 24. Virgelio Gonzales 25. Raymond Pike 26. Shawn Isala 27. Brynnner Auelua 28. Jose Bueno 29. William Noa 30. Kenneth Brewer