Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Two witnesses
offer testimony
in Kailua-Kona
shooting death

By Rod Thompson
Big Island correspondent

KEALAKEKUA, Hawaii -- About a half hour after the shooting death of Kenneth Kaniho Jr. in Kailua-Kona on Saturday, Jesus "Jesse" Reyes Jr. walked into the main Kona police station and said he had "pumped a couple of bullets" into the victim, Lt. Glenn Nojiri testified.

Nojiri and Christine Ross, operations manager of Pacific Waste Inc., where the victim was a vice president, testified at a preliminary hearing for Reyes yesterday.

Ross said the two men had been in a fight several years earlier and had kept a distance.

When Pacific Waste bought Reyes' company in January 1999, Kaniho, 41, hired Reyes, 71, as a consultant, then fired him. About a month ago, Kaniho rehired him, Ross said. Kaniho explained to Ross that he had a lot of respect for Reyes, "and everyone's got to eat," she said.

Ross testified Reyes came to Pacific Waste's Kailua-Kona office shortly after 11:30 a.m. Saturday. She gave him a "peck on the cheek" as she usually did, but his response was more subdued than normal, she said.

Ross went from the small main office into the even smaller, walk-in-closet-sized inner office while Reyes talked to Kaniho.

She heard Kaniho say, "No, no, no, I can't go out to lunch right now. I have to fix these trucks."

Reyes quietly said something more which she didn't catch, and then she heard three shots.
Reyes is being held in lieu of $125,000 bail. District Judge Joseph Florendo Jr. said Reyes must post the bail in cash.

Deputy Prosecutor Cynthia Tai had advised Florendo that police found the gun Reyes allegedly used, that it was not registered to him and that he might have access to other weapons.