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Kauai women
on guard

They look for ways to protect
themselves in the wake
of murders

---

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- Kauai police and the island's only gun store have been deluged with telephone calls from terrified west side women wanting to buy pepper spray for self-defense in the wake of two rape-murders and one vicious assault in the Waimea-Kekaha area over the past several months.

But no store on Kauai stocks pepper spray and you need a permit to carry it.

Concern has escalated with each violent incident.

On Aug. 30, the body of Daren Singer, 43, of Maui was found at her remote campsite near Pakala Point Beach. She had been raped, beaten and stabbed.

On May 22, a 52-year-old woman was badly beaten and stabbed in the yard of a remote Kekaha home. It is believed her attacker may have left her for dead.

On April 7, the body of Lisa Bissell, 38, of Hanapepe, was found in a ditch near Polihale State Park. She had been raped and stabbed to death.

Kauai police have said it's possible the crimes were committed by the same person.

Women on the island's west side have reacted with increasing alarm, many locking their doors for the first time in their lives, most refusing to go to remote areas alone and some looking for self-defense weapons. From the phone calls received by police, pepper spray -- which can temporarily blind and burn all of an attacker's mucous membranes -- appears to be the weapon of choice.

However, Kauai is the only county in Hawaii that requires a police permit to carry pepper spray, a permit similar to that for a gun -- including a 14-day waiting period for a criminal background check. The requirement was apparently designed to keep pepper spray out of the hands of criminals.

"Personally, I think most women would be better off carrying pepper spray than the short-barrel shotguns that they've been buying," said Mike Rosa, co-owner of the Hunting Shop of Kauai.

Rosa said gun sales have been up slightly -- six guns in the past 11 days, most to West Side residents who said they wanted them for self protection -- but the real demand is for pepper spray.

Rosa said he doesn't carry pepper spray because of the requirement for permits, the short shelf life of the spray and the lack of demand in the past.

Police records show gun registrations on Kauai are up only slightly -- 10 requests for permits in the first week of September versus 30 during all of August, but the phone has been ringing steadily from people wanting to buy pepper spray.

"A lot of husbands and boyfriends are calling for their wives and significant others," said Emily Fabro, who processes gun and pepper spray permits for the Kauai police.

Since no store on the island carries it, the only sources on Kauai are two permitted sellers, both Kauai police officers and licensed gun dealers. They have to special order the spray because they don't keep a supply on hand, either.

Kauai residents could buy pepper spray on other islands and bring it back to Kauai. But it would be a crime to carry it on Kauai without a permit and a violation of federal airline regulations to carry it on an airplane.

On the west side of Kauai, the two murders and the assault are not something that some women are talking openly about.

"But it's always behind our heads, especially if we go to the beaches or out of the way places, parks," said a woman clerk at a Kekaha convenience store. "We stay in groups and use the buddy system."

On the job, none of the women clerks ever are alone in the store, which is open evenings, she said.

Men who live on the west side ponder it, too.

"When I'm working it doesn't cross my mind," said a firefighter. "But when I go home and sit and down and think about it, it really bothers me. Somewhere on this small island is someone who is capable of very violent attacks on women and it's probably someone many of us see every day," he said.