Video shows Aki’s
confession to murder
Christopher Aki told police that he beat Kahealani Indreginal after snapping when she slapped him for accidentally spitting on her.
Aki's videotaped statement was shown yesterday to jurors in his murder trial in Circuit court. Aki is charged with second-degree murder for causing Indreginal's death Dec. 10, 2002. The statement was the last that Aki gave police more than eight hours after the girl's decomposing body was found near the Aiea Loop Trail three days after her death.
Aki's defense contends all three statements he gave are a "bunch of lies and tall tales" and that he confessed only because he was trying to protect himself and his family.
Aki alleges that Indreginal's uncle, Dennis Cacatian, killed her with a knife and a large rock at the state park and threatened to kill Aki and his family if he told anyone. Cacatian has not been charged with Indreginal's murder.
In his final statement, a videotape shows Aki slumped in his seat with his head in his hands for most of the interview. Unlike an earlier interview five hours earlier where he told police two of his friends robbed Indreginal for her gold Hawaiian bracelets, he was incoherent at times and appeared weary.
He said he did not intend to pick up Indreginal on Dec. 10, 2002, when he drove to the Halawa housing complex where she and her family lived. But he saw Indreginal next to the manapua van at the complex after she arrived home from school and asked her if she was hungry. She got into his car, and they drove to the Aiea McDonald's, then up to the Keaiwa Heiau State Park. She said she had never been to a heiau before.
They parked in one of the lots at the park and sat in the car eating and talking, he said. They talked about his son, Ezra, and the boy's mother, Tanya Mamala-Tumbaga. Mamala-Tumbaga is Indreginal's older half sister, whom Aki dated for seven years.
"We were talking face to face, and, you know, we were giggling and laughing, I spit and she slapped me," he told detectives Sheryl Sunia and Cliff Rubio. "I just snapped and I punched her out cold."
He said he struck her in the mouth. She made a moaning sound, so he knew she was coming around.
"I got scared. Then I took her out of the car," he continued.
He said he pulled her down a hillside and, when he got to the edge, tossed her down. She slid down headfirst about 15 feet, he said.
A rusty black pole on the ground caught his attention.
"It was right there, just shining at me," he said.
He said he grabbed the pole and went down the hill to where she lay and hit her in the back of the head, then kept on hitting "without force -- just making the motion," Aki said.
After hitting her about 10 times in the head and body, Indreginal managed to push herself up and called out his name.
"I don't know how she did it. She just got up and she looked at me and she said ..."
According to Aki's videotaped confession, blood was coming down the side of her face. When she said his name, Aki hit her in the back about five times, then in the neck before she slumped down. He said he hit her in the head about 20 more times. He prodded her with the pipe and saw she still was breathing.
Blood had splashed onto his hands and clothes, so he went back up the hill and washed it off with water from his car. He tossed the pole on the front passenger mat, he said.
Ten minutes later he went back down the hill and saw her sitting up, he said. He retrieved the pole from his car and went back down. She watched him coming down, and he thought she said, "Stop it, Chris."
"That's when I just lost it again," he said, adding that he struck her about 10 times more in the head before she fell to her side.
He said he knew she was still alive when he left her because he saw her stomach move. Aki said he threw up all the way home.
His mother sensed something was wrong and asked if he was doing drugs, and he denied it. He tossed and turned that night.
"I was scared," he said.
His girlfriend called him about midnight, saying her sister was missing, but he did not let on that he knew where Indreginal was, Aki said.
He said he returned to check on Indreginal two days later and that she was dead but in a different location, which indicated she was alive when he left her.
"I just touched her and prayed and crying, and I ran back."
"It's terrible -- it wasn't, it wasn't me -- this wasn't me," he said when asked how he felt about what happened.
"I'm so sorry to the whole family -- to her mom and dad -- I love them so much. I never meant to hurt her or their daughter," he said.