FBI investigates
Volcanoes Park slaying

CORRECTION Sunday, April 17, 2005 » The size of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is 333,086 acres. A Page A4 story yesterday about a murder in the park incorrectly gave the size as 323,431 acres. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin strives to make its news report fair and accurate. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, call Editor Frank Bridgewater at 529-4791 or email him at corrections@starbulletin.com.

HILO » The FBI is conducting a homicide investigation after a body was found in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Big Island police and other sources said yesterday.

Police classified as murder the case of a man found face down on Highway 11 in the Kahuku area about 5 p.m. Wednesday, police records show. The case was turned over to national park law enforcement personnel after police received the notice.

The national park issued no statement, and FBI sources were not available for comment. East Hawaii police said they were given no details about the case, which was initially reported to the West Hawaii Criminal Investigation Section.

A source close to the investigation said the victim had apparently not been dead a long time.

Hawaii County fire officials, who provide ambulance and paramedic services around the county, said they were not notified, something that would probably have been done if the death was very recent and if there was any question about saving the victim's life or formally declaring the person dead.

The highway where police said the body was found has been under federal jurisdiction since that area became part of the Volcanoes park. With the inclusion of the Kahuku lands in the southern part of the island in 2003, the 323,431-acre park now extends in a 70-mile arc from Kahuku to the summit of Mauna Loa to ongoing lava flows in the east.

Big Island history writer Kent Warshauer said the only other homicide case in the park that he knows of was a murder-suicide in the 1920s.

In 1999, in Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park on the other side of the island from Hawaii Volcanoes, ranger Steve Makuakane-Jarrell was killed by a man who was later caught and has since been undergoing treatment for mental illness.