‘She was all bloody’
Hearing Dana Ireland's faint
voice calling for help, Ida Smith
thought it was a little girl --
until she found the
rape victimBy Rod Thompson
Judge limits mention of Pauline's drug use
Star-BulletinHILO -- "Help me. Help me." Rural Big Island resident Ida Smith heard the voice coming through the jungle and followed it to a fishing trail where she found Dana Ireland.
"She was lying there, and her head was facing the ocean," Smith testified yesterday with tears and a quivering voice.
"She had nothing on. Her jeans were -- she had cutoff jeans -- and they were down around her ankles, and her shirt looked like someone had grabbed it and tore it off her like that. And she was all bloody, and I didn't know what to do. She looked pretty bad."
Frank Pauline Jr., 26, is accused of participating with two brothers in the Christmas Eve 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder of Ireland, 23, who had recently moved to the Big Island from Virginia.
Yesterday, on the fourth day of testimony in a trial expected to last seven weeks, Smith told how she found Ireland.
Smith described living on a pothole-filled dirt road in a coastal area called Waawaa.
"There's no phone, no electricity, no running water out there," she said.
About 4:45 p.m. -- Smith noted the time on a clock -- she heard a voice like that of a little girl calling for help.
"I thought the kids were having a game. I just didn't pay attention right away." The sound didn't stop."I just got nosy." She thought maybe a child had got locked inside the basement at the house next door.
"It wouldn't stop. 'Help me. Help me.' The voice was very faint, That's why I thought it was a little girl."
She followed the voice, past the neighbor's house, to a fisherman's trail.
"I heard the crying so I said: 'I'm coming. Where are you?'"
Her next thought was that someone got a car or truck stuck on the steep, narrow fisherman's trail.
She had heard the sound of a car or truck earlier.
Walking down the trail, she found Ireland on jagged bushes.
Ireland asked Smith to remove her pants, which were around one ankle.
She was mostly incoherent. "She thought I was a man."
Smith tried to move her but Ireland screamed. So Smith held her hand and prayed with her.
Then she hurried back to her house to get a quilt to put over her.
She stopped a driver later identified as Hazel Allan who went to a phone for help.
She stopped another car with three men and a woman.
Peter Teijeiro testified that he was the driver, sightseeing in a rental car.
"Out of nowhere this haole lady came out of the bushes and flagged us down," Teijeiro said. "She really looked nervous."
Smith led Teijeiro's girlfriend, then the rest of them, to Ireland, he said.
"She was really bust up. She looked like someone really beat her up badly," he said. "She was in shock already. She didn't know her name."
A friend with Teijeiro knew of a nurse who lived nearby and went to get her.
With the nurse, they moved Ireland from the bushes to the fishing trail.
The nurse tried to stop the bleeding on Ireland's head with a piece of gauze from a first-aid kit, he said.
Darkness fell, and Smith said she drove her car to the fishing trail and turned on the lights.
Retired police officer Harold Pinnow testified he was assigned to investigate Ireland's broken bicycle on Kapoho Kai Drive.
From there he was sent to Waawaa, already suspecting that the assault victim in Waawaa was the bicycle rider.
"When I left Kapoho Kai, I instructed dispatch to make sure to call Rescue and do not wait for confirmation," he said.
Seeing the nurse, identified as Geri Coleman, and others giving first aid, Pinnow left that task to them and started gathering information.
Smith waited and waited for an ambulance. "The ambulance never came. Well, it did, but not right away."
Paramedics treated Ireland and took her to the hospital, Pinnow said.
HILO -- Judge Riki May Amano ruled today that the prosecution may not argue that defendant Frank Pauline raped and murdered Dana Ireland because he was on drugs. But the prosecution can make other references to Pauline's use of drugs. Judge limits mention
of Pauline's drug useDefense attorney Clifford Hunt sought to exclude references to Pauline's use of drugs and to exclude testimony by Dr. Ruben Casile concerning treatment of Dana Ireland at Hilo Hospital.
His motions were heard this morning.
After conferring with the judge, the prosecution agreed not to call Casile this morning.
In unrelated activity yesterday, Amano questioned two jurors and an alternate in separate, whispered bench conferences.
The purpose of the questioning was not revealed. All three returned to the jury.
By Rod Thompson, Star-Bulletin
Defense does not believe witnesses
There are differences between Ida Smith's
By Rod Thompson
testimony and what she allegedly
once told police
Star-BulletinHILO -- Attorney Clifford Hunt, defending Frank Pauline Jr. from the charge of murdering Dana Ireland, had a final question yesterday for Ida Smith, who found Ireland.
Did Smith know what the word "browbeating" meant?
Ironically, Hunt asked the question after his own intense cross-examination of Smith in which he refused to accept many of her answers.
On the previous day, Hunt had refused to accept many answers from pathology expert Kanthi von Guenthner concerning Ireland's injuries.
Von Guenthner finally told him, "You distorted what I said."
Hunt's disbelief in Smith yesterday arose from differences between her testimony and interviews with Smith done by police years ago in which Smith allegedly gave different answers.
Smith testified yesterday that Ireland said she didn't know who attacked her.
Hunt referred to a police report in which Smith allegedly said Ireland told her she was attacked by "a friend or a friend of a friend."
Smith explained that Ireland was incoherent. "That's who she thought I was," Smith said.
Smith testified Ireland was wearing a T-shirt. A police report said Smith described Ireland as wearing a blouse, Hunt said.
"I never said it was a blouse," Smith responded.
Smith testified yesterday that she was home and heard Ireland's voice at or shortly after 4:45 p.m. A police report said Smith said she didn't get home from shopping until 5:30 p.m.
"I don't remember telling him that," Smith said.
Smith's testimony yesterday matched information she gave the Star-Bulletin during three prior interviews, including one in January 1992, shortly after Ireland was attacked.
The police version did not match accounts Smith gave the Star-Bulletin.
Although retired police officer Harold Pinnow, who made one of the reports Hunt referred to, was on the witness stand yesterday, neither prosecution nor defense questioned him about the accuracy of his report.
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