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Suspect’s 1993
By Rod Thompson
interview disagrees with
others’ testimony in Big Isle
rape-murder case
Star-BulletinHILO -- Murder suspect Richard D. Serrano told a California policeman in 1993 that he spent about 1 hours with 16-year-old Sequoya Vargas before dropping her off so she could smoke marijuana with friends.
In a tape of the police interview, played during Serrano's trial yesterday, a California officer tells Serrano that Big Island police wanted to know if he would accept leniency for cooperation.
"Leniency for what?" Serrano answers. "If I knew where she was, I'd just tell them."
Serrano, 29, is charged with sexual assault, kidnapping and murder in the Aug. 22, 1993, disappearance and presumed death of Vargas. Her body was never found.
Former California policeman Thomas Watson Jr. testified yesterday that he conducted the interview in Santa Cruz on Sept. 18, 1993. Vargas was listed as a missing person.
Serrano says on the tape that he picked up Vargas and another girl hitchhiking in Puna at about 6 p.m., dropped them off, then called Vargas at about 7 p.m. By 7:45 he had picked her up and brought her to the home of his cousin, Jason McCubbins.
Serrano says he and Vargas drank a couple of beers and then drove to Pahoa at about 8:30 p.m. where he smoked marijuana with Vargas.
Then Vargas said, "Wait, wait. There's my friends. I'm going with my friends. I'm going to go smoke out," Serrano says on the tape.
Vargas' friends were in a pickup truck with a dented left front panel and a crooked headlight, Serrano says.
Serrano's taped comments contrasted with testimony earlier in the day from Matthew Gibbs, 26, who along with McCubbins, 27, joined Serrano in attacking Vargas, prosecutors say. Both Gibbs and McCubbins got plea deals.
Gibbs testimony differed from McCubbins' in some details. McCubbins said Gibbs had sex with Vargas. Gibbs said he did not. Gibbs said McCubbins helped Serrano beat Vargas. McCubbins said only Serrano beat her.
But Gibbs' story was consistent with McCubbins' on key points: Serrano raped Vargas after she passed out while drinking. Serrano beat her. Serrano helped transport her to the ocean. Serrano and McCubbins threw her down a sea cliff.
