Mother, daughter
identify same man
in lineup as burglar

Both women testify that
Shaun Rodrigues tied them up
and robbed their house

---

By Debra Barayuga
dbarayuga@starbulletin.com

A Manoa woman said she pleaded with a gun-wielding intruder not to take the only jewelry she had left after her home had been burglarized twice before.

"Please don't take my ring, it's all I have left," Dianne Sugihara begged the man who had tied her and her daughter up and robbed them at gunpoint during a July 8, 2000, burglary at their Oahu Avenue home.

But Sugihara twisted the ring off and gave it to him after he responded, "You want me to cut off your finger?"

Sugihara later identified the robber during a photo lineup with no hesitation two days later at the Honolulu Police Station.

"When I saw his picture, it just popped up at me, and I remembered everything that happened Saturday morning," she said.

The man in the photo was Shaun Rodrigues, 21, who installed a siren for the Sugihara's alarm system just 12 days earlier after their home was burglarized the second time in June 2000.

Rodrigues is on trial for kidnapping, first-degree robbery and first-degree burglary in what the defense calls a case of "mistaken identity."

Sugihara said she couldn't believe that the man in the photo was the alarm installer because he worked for the alarm company owned by her husband's classmate, he had come to her home twice -- the second time to install a siren and she had offered him a Coke in her kitchen.

She said she didn't know why she didn't recognize the robber during the burglary as the alarm installer.

She was in the bathroom about to take a shower that morning when she heard a noise outside the door. Thinking her daughter Dawn had come home, she opened the door to find a man standing two to three feet away and pointing a gun at her face.

"I was scared," Sugihara said, so she complied with his demands. "I was afraid of the gun."

He refused to let her put on her clothes, telling her to grab a towel, then ordered both women to lie on the floor. He tied their hands with cords and threw clothing over their heads.

Sugihara said he later commented, "You should get a better alarm system," and that they had a big house and could afford to replace her ring.

Dawn Sugihara said she was concerned for both her and her mother's safety and did as the man ordered "because I didn't want to get shot."

He left the house after about a half hour but not before searching the home for valuables. He left with jewelry and cash he found in the women's purses.

Daughter Dawn Sugihara also picked out Rodrigues as the intruder in a separate photo lineup. "I immediately knew that was the person who had been in our home."

Although she wasn't sure after the robbery she could describe him, as soon as she saw the photo, she was positive, she said. "As sure as I can be."