DNA evidence
emerges in Dana
Ireland case
Analysis may clear
By Rod Thompson
Frank Pauline Jr. as well as the
Schweitzer brothers and point
to a different suspect
Star-BulletinHILO -- An expert witness assisting with the defense of Dana Ireland murder suspect Frank Pauline Jr. found thousands of spermatozoa on a hospital bed sheet on which Ireland lay as she died in 1991, court documents say.
DNA analysis of the sperm could clear Pauline and two brothers, Albert and Shawn Schweitzer, and point to a different suspect, Pauline's attorney, Clifford B. Hunt, suggested in the documents.
Ireland's mother, Louise Ireland, has said she believes the dropping of the charges against the Schweitzers on Tuesday could be linked to the DNA evidence.
Deputy Prosecutor Charlene Iboshi said Tuesday only that "new and unforeseen developments" led to dropping the charges.
Ireland, 23, was visiting the Big Island with her parents when she was attacked on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1991 in Puna.
Police and pretrial court testimony have indicated she was struck by a car, kidnapped and taken to a remote spot, beaten and sexually assaulted, and left to die.
Her case became famous for several reasons: its viciousness, a two-hour delay in her getting help, partly caused by police and paramedic mix-ups, and a six-year delay in charges being filed.
Some people associated with the case made vague statements over the years about DNA material from the attackers being rendered useless shortly after the assault.
In the documents, Hunt gave the clearest publicly available statement yet of what happened.
"The FBI's lab and other prosecution-appointed labs overlooked and otherwise wasted or destroyed the 'best' sources of evidence, which included, among other things, a half-dozen or more cotton swabs of the vaginal, cervical, etc. areas of Ms. Ireland," Hunt wrote.
Ira Leitel, attorney for Shawn Schweitzer until he was removed because of a conflict of interest, brought to the court's attention his concern about the prosecution destroying what was then believed to be the last sperm evidence, consisting of "3-4 sperm with or without tails," Hunt's documents revealed.
Hunt also wrote that Brian De Lima, attorney for Pauline until he, too, was removed because of a conflict, brought into the case Dr. Edward Blake, a DNA expert.
"In May-June 1998, Dr. Blake was sent evidence by the Hawaii County Police Department. To everyone's surprise, he found biological material on, among other things, a hospital sheet that Ms. Ireland lay on that contained large amounts, i.e., thousands of spermatozoa," Hunt wrote.
Hunt's statements are in a request to the court, filed Sept. 15, for more money to pay Blake's $11,724.25 bill.
Before that, on Aug. 4, Hunt and two other defense attorneys, Keith Shigetomi and James Biven, had signed an agreement with the prosecution. The agreement said Blake would personally determine the DNA fingerprint of a quarter of the sperm on the bed sheet, his laboratory would analyze another quarter, and half would remain untouched.
There are no publicly available documents showing whether the work was actually done.
