Hauula couple help
foil home burglary

Chasing the suspect was risky
but may solve more crimes

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By Rod Antone
rantone@starbulletin.com

Kaneohe police said a Hauula couple who helped catch the man who allegedly robbed their home last week took a big chance by tracking down the suspect's van and tailing his vehicle.

Still, police said, the couple's efforts may lead to more burglary cases being solved around the island.

The suspect in the case, 40-year-old Lynn G. Waterhouse, was bound over for trial yesterday afternoon. Waterhouse has been charged with one count of burglary and is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

Besides the Hauula burglary, Waterhouse is being looked at for some of the 25 other burglaries that took place last month along Kamehameha Highway between Kaneohe and Kahuku, police said.

"We had plenty in March ... a lot of them daytime burglaries like this one," said Kaneohe Burglary Detective Bobby Miranda.

"We also had detectives call us up regarding cases in Manoa and Tantalus that he might have been involved in."

Miranda said that on April 3, a woman returned to her Hauula home along Kamehameha Highway and discovered a man carrying belongings from her house to a van parked across the highway, facing the Kahuku direction.

The victim, who does not want to be identified, said she recognized her purse and a glass Japanese fishing ball that the suspect was carrying.

The victim said she thought to herself, "That's my purse!" and attempted to block the man's van with her car. At that point she said the man got in the van, made a U-turn and headed down the highway toward Kaneohe.

Police said the woman dialed 911, then called her husband, who works in Halawa.

Miranda said the husband decided he was going to try and find the burglar on his own. After reaching Kamehameha Highway, the husband did just that.

"That was a great time," said the husband, an Anheuser-Busch sales manager who also does not want to be identified. "My adrenaline was pumping.

"I had a feeling that if he's heading toward Kaneohe I might catch him on his way to the H-3 or Likelike Highway ... my wife gave me the license plate number and described the van and the guy, and I spotted him between Waihee Road and the Hygienic Store."

The husband said he tried to keep his distance from the van so that the driver would not get suspicious and that he called his wife at home, where he knew police had arrived. He was joined later by two police vehicles behind the van as everyone approached Likelike Highway.

Miranda said that by then the police helicopter had spotted the suspect's van and followed it all the way to Kalihi Valley.

The suspect ditched the van and later was arrested by police at a stream near Numana Road, police said.

In the van, police recovered most of the stolen items from the Hauula burglary as well as items taken from an earlier burglary that day in Laie, Miranda said.

On April 5, the husband realized some other belongings were still missing and returned to the scene of the arrest with police officers.

They found a bag of jewelry, which police said Waterhouse had apparently hidden near the stream where he was arrested.

"The (husband) went back and had a feeling that the suspect ditched his stuff," said Miranda.

"These people ended up getting everything back. They were really aware of everything, very smart."

Miranda praised the couple. "Right time, right place, right people," he said. "We wouldn't have caught this guy so quickly if it wasn't for this couple.

"These guys took a big chance, but thankfully everything worked out all right."