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Court hears
By Steve Murray
how Waikiki clerk
beaten to death
Star-BulletinSamuel Cooper Jr. entered a Waikiki video store last year and struck a clerk on the head several times with a seven-pound roll of shrink wrap.
The only dispute between the defense and the prosecution is whether it was murder or manslaughter.
Opening statements began in Circuit Court yesterday in the murder trial of the 34-year-old Wahiawa man on a second-degree murder charge. Keith Miyashiro, 49, was slain on Aug. 20, 1999 at Waikiki Video Sales & Rentals, 2139 Kuhio Ave.
Deputy Prosecutor Eric Sacks described Miyashiro as a slight man with poor eyesight.
Sacks told the jury that Cooper entered the store, then waited until other customers left before he struck Miyashiro over the head several times with the murder weapon.
"The killer brought the wrap down onto the victim's head," Sacks said. "The killer didn't stop, even though the victim was on the ground."
Sacks said the blows to the head shattered Miyashiro's skull and put a four-inch hole in the top of his head. Miyashiro died the next day at Straub Hospital.
Cooper told police investigators he hit Miyashiro three times before robbing the store of $287, Sacks said. After trying to remove his fingerprints from the scene, Sacks said, Cooper struck Miyashiro one more time before leaving the store.
Defense attorney Ronette Kawakami said: "This is a case about robbery that became a manslaughter."
Kawakami said Cooper hit Miyashiro to subdue him, not kill him. "He (Cooper) told the police that he hit him (Miyashiro) to put him to sleep," she said. Kawakami said Cooper struck Miyashiro a final time because he thought he was waking up.
Cooper is being held at Halawa prison on a $100,000 bond.
