CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Defendant Kirk Lankford listened in court yesterday as his trial began in the murder case of Masumi Watanabe

Witnesses link victim to pest control truck

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A trial based on circumstantial evidence opened yesterday in the presumed death of a Japanese visitor missing since last April.

Kirk Lankford is charged with murdering Masumi Watanabe, 21.

One witness said she saw Watanabe "crawl" into the driver's side of a Hauoli Termite & Pest Control truck on the morning she disappeared. Lankford, 23, was employed as a pest control technician for Hauoli at the time.

In his opening statement, city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle said DNA from glasses and blood found in the truck is Watanabe's.

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CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Prosecutor Peter Carlisle held a diagram yesterday as Lisa Nakayama testified about seeing Masumi Watanabe "crawl" into a pest control truck on the morning she disappeared.

Lisa Nakayama said she was in shock when she saw a CrimeStoppers missing-person alert on television in April of a Japanese visitor who was last seen in Pupukea.

"My heart started pounding and my hands started shaking," Nakayama said.

The missing person featured in the alert was 21-year-old Masumi Watanabe.

Kirk Matthew Lankford is charged with murdering Watanabe. His Circuit Court trial started yesterday.

Watanabe has not been seen since she disappeared April 12 and is presumed dead.

Nakayama, testifying as a prosecution witness yesterday, said she was in shock because she saw Watanabe on Pupukea Road on the morning Watanabe disappeared while driving home after grocery shopping. She said she saw Watanabe "crawl" into a Hauoli Termite & Pest Control truck through the driver's side door.

Lankford, 23, was employed as a pest control technician for Hauoli at the time.

Before Watanabe entered the truck, Nakayama said she saw a man wearing dark coveralls standing outside the truck who appeared to be talking to Watanabe. She said Watanabe looked confused, was not talking back and instead was looking away from the other person.

Nakayama said she did not get a good look at the other person because his back was to her at times and the truck obstructed her view at other times. She estimated she saw Watanabe at 9:40 a.m. based on her receipt from Foodland Super Market at the base of Pupukea Road.

At about 9:30 that morning, Pupukea resident Stephen Paty said he was driving makai on Pupukea Road when he encountered a pickup truck stopped in his lane facing in the same direction. Off the other side of the road on a raised embankment, Paty said he saw Watanabe facing the truck and waving her hands back and fourth across the front of her body.

"To me it was an obvious wave-off," Paty said.

However, Paty said he did not get a look at whoever was in the truck, nor was he able to identify whether it was a Hauoli truck.

In his opening statement to the jurors, city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle said he will present global positioning satellite data from Lankford's Hauoli company truck plotting his movements on the day Watanabe disappeared. He also told them DNA from glasses and blood found in the truck is Watanabe's.

Carlisle also showed the jury surveillance video from Foodland that he said shows Lankford purchasing garbage bags, bleach spray and paper towels less than two hours after Watanabe was last seen. He also showed the jurors a product tag recovered from Lankford's personal truck. He said the tag is for a pair of gloves purchased at Home Depot on the evening Watanabe disappeared along with a flashlight, trash bags, a shovel and duct tape.

He said a witness identified Lankford as the man he saw digging in the ground by flashlight near the Kahana Bay fishpond at about midnight April 12 with what appeared to be a brand-new shovel and wearing brand-new gloves and coveralls.

Lankford's lawyer, Don Wilkerson, did not make an opening statement yesterday.

The trial continues today.