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Woman retells
story of finding
Dana Ireland
Ida Smith testifies in the trial
By Rod Thompson
of Albert Ian Schweitzer
Big Island correspondent
HILO -- Rural Big Island resident Ida Smith heard a noise like a truck coming from a fishing trail near her Waawaa home on Christmas Eve 1991, she told police.
Five to 10 minutes later, she heard a girl's voice from that area repeating, "Help me, help me."
Following the voice, she discovered Dana Ireland battered, bleeding and nearly naked, lying on broken bushes beside the fishing trail.
That night, Ireland died.
Smith took the witness stand yesterday in the trial of Albert Ian Schweitzer, 28, accused of kidnapping, rape and murder in the death of Ireland, 23.
Smith testified last summer in the trial of Frank Pauline Jr., accused of the same charges, and has told the story of finding Ireland many times.
She fought back tears as she retold it yesterday.
It begins with the sound of a vehicle on the four-wheel-drive trail.
"I heard this sound like somebody was stuck," Smith testified. "You can hear them with their wheels grinding to get onto the pavement there."
Cross-examining her, Schweitzer's attorney James Biven said, "It was actually a truck you heard."
Smith answered: "I didn't see the vehicle. I didn't know what it was."
Biven produced a 1991 police report in which Smith allegedly said the vehicle was a truck.
She answered that she assumed it was a truck because many trucks get stuck on the trail.
Biven's attempt to nail down the presence of a truck just before Ireland was found was part of an effort to show that Schweitzer's Volkswagen "bug" was not used in the attack on Ireland.
Deputy prosecutors Charlene Iboshi and Lincoln Ashida say Schweitzer used the Volkswagen that was used to run over Ireland and her bicycle at Kapoho Vacationland subdivision.
Schweitzer used the Volkswagen to carry Ireland five miles to Waawaa where she was raped, beaten and abandoned, they say.
Biven noted Monday that many witnesses testified to seeing pickup trucks in the area.
Biven also asked Smith about her alleged 1991 statement to an officer that Ireland said she was attacked by "a friend" or "a friend of a friend."
Smith said she didn't say that to the officer.
She explained: "(Ireland) was very incoherent. I didn't know whether she was talking about going to a friend's house or being with a friend. I don't know. I had no idea what she was saying. She mentioned 'a friend of a friend.'
"She thought I was a man, calling me 'sir.' She was very incoherent. Just rattling, you know, in pain."
Dana Ireland Archive
