Maui man held KULA, Maui >> Police detained a Pukalani man yesterday for questioning in the death of a woman whose body was found Monday evening in a sugar cane field in Lower Kula.
in woman’s death
Police tentatively identify the
victim as Natalie Sagawinit, 44By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.comThe body of the 44-year-old woman was discovered before 6:30 p.m. about 100 yards east of Pulehu Road and about a half-mile makai of the Kula Agricultural Park.
Police Detective Brian Kaya said the woman has been tentatively identified as Natalie Sagawinit. Kaya said an autopsy had yet to confirm the identity of the dead woman and the approximate time of her death.
He said the man being held was an "acquaintance" of Sagawinit.
Kaya also declined to release details about any apparent injuries on the woman's body.
"It's really the early stages of the investigation," Kaya said. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us."
The killing has stirred memories among some Maui residents about other crimes in Lower Kula.
Maui police detectives still have on their books the unsolved murder of a college student Julie Ann Sharp whose body was also found in a sugar cane field in Lower Kula, in the mid-1980s.
More recently, people have burglarized and trespassed on some Lower Kula farm properties. Kula farmer Gilbert Edo said two of his neighbors were burglarized as recently as February.
Edo said a person cannot leave a vehicle on the side of Pulehu Road for more than 24 hours without some damage or theft.
"Expect your windshield smashed, your tires gone. Unreal," said Edo, who has farmed in Kula since the early 1980s.
Kaya said there was no connection between the unsolved death of the college student in 1980 and the recent homicide.
Detectives examined a white van parked in the vicinity of the body but declined to discuss if the van was connected to the dead woman.
Police carried shovels and a screen yesterday to examine the sugar cane field in the vicinity of where the body was found.
Detectives also examined other potential places for evidence, including Sagawinit's Pahaa Place home in Pukalani.