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State wants
double killer
imprisoned for
100 years

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By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

A man convicted of killing two people within seven months after he was released from prison should spend 100 years behind bars for the safety of the community, the state told the Hawaii Paroling Authority.

"Bottom line is, he needs to be incarcerated for the rest of his natural life," Deputy Prosecutor Chris Van Marter said yesterday at a minimum term hearing for Samuel Cooper Jr., 35.

The parole board is expected to decide soon how long Cooper will have to spend behind bars before he can seek parole.

A jury convicted Cooper in August of second-degree murder for bludgeoning video store clerk Keith Miyashiro to death with a seven-pound roll of plastic wrap during a robbery in August 1999.

Cooper also pleaded guilty under a plea agreement to second-degree murder in the May 1999 slaying of longtime Honolulu Symphony volunteer Fred Cramer. Cooper had been released from prison just four months earlier.

Deputy Prosecutor Eric Sacks had said the state went with the plea agreement to spare Cramer's family, friends and supporters the gruesome details of his strangling. Cooper will be sentenced to a mandatory life term in that murder on Jan. 9.

In both cases, Cooper stalked, brutally attacked and killed his victims, said Van Marter, calling the defendant a "predator" with no conscience and incapable of feeling for others.

Cooper was released from prison in March 1999 after completing sentences on unrelated first-degree assault and rape convictions. Previously, he also served time in California for robbery and narcotics convictions.

While Cooper has been on probation and parole, his offenses have increased in seriousness as well as violence, Van Marter said.

Deputy public defender Ronnie Kawakami could not be reached for comment.