DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Public defender Susan Arnett, left, and Delmer Edmonds, Jr. left the razor wire behind as he exited Oahu Community Correctional Center yesterday. He was released in light of new evidence.

Bustamante suspect
let go

DNA tests exclude a former
Kaneohe Marine as the man
who murdered a teen 27 years ago

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By Debra Barayuga and Nelson Daranciang
dbarayuga@starbulletin.com
ndaranciang@starbulletin.com

When former Kaneohe Marine Delmer Edmonds Jr. walked out of prison yesterday for the first time since he was arrested nearly 14 months ago for suspicion of murder, all he could think about was reuniting with his family.

"I feel relieved, I'm just relieved," he said, his voice gruff with emotion. "I'm just ready to go see my family. I miss them."

DNA test results received yesterday from a mainland lab apparently excluded Edmonds, 46, as the man accused of raping and murdering 13-year-old Dawn "Dede" Bustamante 27 years ago and attempting to murder her friend, Cherie Verdugo, also 13. He was to have gone to trial next month.

Waiting to greet Edmonds as he walked through the security gates to freedom yesterday with a plastic garbage bag filled with letters and his Bible were his public defenders Susan Arnett and Ronette Kawakami.

With the barbed wire fences far behind him, Edmonds said he was innocent of the charges but that he feels no bitterness for what he has gone through the past 14 months.

"I would have probably done the same thing had it been my daughter. I would have went after somebody to help me with my daughter," he said.

The decision to release Edmonds was made after test results showed a DNA sample in evidence did not match a sample taken from Edmonds following his arrest in Indiana, said Honolulu City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle.

"For the purposes of the trial, it clearly indicates that there may exist a reasonable doubt as to the evidence in the case against Delmer Edmonds," he said.

Deputy Prosecutor Rom Trader who is handling the case received the test results at 8 a.m. yesterday and informed Edmonds' attorneys and the Bustamante family.

"My family is devastated," said Sheri McArthur, Dawn's younger sister. "It's not over." Despite the test result, McArthur believes the state has the right man.

But Richard McClendon, a spokesman for the Emonds family in Indiana said, "They clearly had the wrong man and we just pray the family and the system can move on."

After meeting with Edmonds' attorneys and prosecutors yesterday afternoon, Circuit Judge Marie Milks signed an order temporarily releasing Edmonds until a hearing Tuesday when the state is expected to ask that the charges against him be dismissed.

Carlisle said his office will ask Milks to dismiss the case against Edmonds "without prejudice," leaving open the possibility that he can be re-indicted at a future date.

Edmonds' attorney Susan Arnett said she will ask the judge to dismiss the case "with prejudice" to prevent her client from ever being charged with Bustamante's murder again.

In the alternative Arnett said she will ask the judge to give the state just 30 to 60 days to re-indict Edmonds.

The DNA test was the third attempt by the prosecutor to match the sample in evidence with Edmonds. One attempt made prior to last August's grand jury indictment charging Edmonds with murder and another one after he was indicted were unsuccessful because the sample in evidence was too small, Carlisle said.

About two months ago, Carlise said his office learned of a laboratory in Louisiana that specializes in analyzing minute samples of DNA. It was that laboratory that determined the sample did not match Edmonds.

Arnett said the state could have saved Edmonds months of inconvenience by asking him for a DNA sample before taking him into custody.

"There was no attempt to get a sample before the arrest. He wasn't going anywhere. He's lived in Indiana 25 years," Arnett said.

Police had considered Edmonds a prime suspect at the time and had questioned him twice but did not arrest him because they didn't feel they had enough evidence to charge him. Honolulu Police and the Naval Criminal Investigative Services began looking into the unsolved case in January 2000 and uncovered what they said was new evidence tying Edmonds to the crime..

He was arrested in Indianapolis on July 17, 2001, and consented to producing DNA for testing at the state's request. He was indicted by an Oahu grand jury on Aug. 7, 2001.

Bustamante and Verdugo, now Verdugo-McCoy, were abducted at gunpoint by a lone male in a white car from Kailua on March 14, 1975, and driven to an isolated area near the Pali Golf Course. The man sexually assaulted Bustamante in his car and shot her in the head when she tried to flee. Verdugo managed to escape.

Edmonds left Oahu Community Correctional Center wearing the same clothes he was arrested in back in Indiana: denim shorts and a gray Old Navy shirt with the American flag emblazoned on his chest.

"This means everything to me," he said, tapping the flag on his chest. "I'm a Marine, always been a Marine, a U.S. citizen ... I love the United States."

Despite what he has gone through the past 22 months, Edmonds said he still has faith in the justice system. "But I have more faith in the Lord."