A Major Lack Of Aloha

Dana Marie Ireland was born on December 12th, 1968, in Virginia, the younger daughter of John and Louise Ireland. Her sister Sandra was thirteen years older. The family lived in Springfield, Virginia, about ten miles outside Washington, D.C., in a three-bedroom house they kept for more than thirty-five years. Dana went to Keene Mill Elementary School, Washington Irving Middle School and West Springfield High School, then to Radford University and for a time George Mason University. She was a strong athlete and a neat tomboy who rarely wore dresses, and she was fascinated by Hawaii because Sandra had moved there with her boyfriend Jim after college. The family visited almost every year. In 1991, after graduating, Dana moved to the Big Island to stay with Sandra and Jim in Vacationland, a small beach community in the Puna district.

Sandra introduced her to Mark Evans, a carpenter and surfer who had known Sandra for years. Evans said he had always had a crush on Sandra, and that when Dana arrived, a double of her sister, it was like, thank you lord, there are two of them. They spent the autumn bodyboarding, swimming and hiking; he took her to Wapayo Valley to see the waterfalls. He later said they kissed once.

On Christmas Eve 1991 the Ireland family was on the island. They went shopping in Hilo for gifts; Louise did not buy Dana anything that day because they planned to go to Kona on Christmas Day. Dana bought her mother a shirt, a tray with a Hawaiian design and a sequinned handbag. John gave his daughter $400 in traveller's cheques for a planned trip to Australia with Sandra and Jim.

That afternoon Dana borrowed Sandra's mountain bike and rode about seven miles to Mark Evans's house to invite him to Christmas Eve dinner. She left at about 4.10 p.m. and turned down his offer of a lift, saying the day was too beautiful to waste. She rode along Route 137, the Red Road, a bumpy, twisting stretch of red cinder pavement that follows the eastern shore. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The men whistled and waved; she waved back and rode on. Ten or fifteen minutes later the three got into the Beetle and drove off in the same direction.

At 4.45 p.m. Ida Smith, who lived in a wooden house by the ocean in Waa Waa, five miles from the crash site, looked at her wall clock and started dinner. She heard screeching tyres, which she took for fishermen stuck on the trail off Government Beach Road, and then a soft voice saying help me, help me. She thought it was children playing and ignored it, but it went on for five or ten minutes, so she took her two dogs and walked down the rock path. The dogs stopped. She found Dana thrown into a thorny bush, her shorts around her ankles, her shirt pulled up, covered in blood, with bite marks, scratches and a deep gash in her head through which her skull was visible. Dana was incoherent and in great pain. this part of the story is covered for now There was no electricity or telephone service in the area.

Earlier, on the Red Road, Anna Sherrill had been driving to the dump with her rubbish and had spotted a single new white tennis shoe. She stopped to look for its pair and instead found a mangled bicycle, strands of blond hair, fresh blood, a broken watch and tyre tracks. She called the police at 5.25 p.m. A snorkeller, Rich Trenda, arrived with a camera and photographed the scene. Ida Smith stopped a pickup driven by Hazel Franklin, who drove on and called police at 5.47 p.m. The first officer, Robert Wagner, reached the bicycle at 5.36 p.m.; Officer Harold Pinno arrived four minutes later and was sent on to Waa Waa because nobody else was available. The sites were five miles apart on rough, partly unpaved roads. The ambulance did not reach Dana until 6.50 p.m. She was taken to Hilo Medical Center, where she had emergency surgery, and she died that night. An autopsy found that she died of massive blood loss from multiple traumatic injuries. She had been sexually assaulted, her pelvis and collarbone were broken, and there was a bite mark on her left breast.

The investigation was crippled from the start. It was a public holiday, so detectives and senior officers were off duty, and only two officers and a sergeant were assigned to the two scenes. Christmas Eve crowds and civilians, Sherrill among them, walked over the evidence before it could be cordoned off. The county had no medical examiner, no specialist evidence technicians, and a crime lab without sophisticated DNA testing, so material went to the FBI, where results took six months to a year. One detective worked the case full time, and dozens of tips after the $25,000 reward could not all be followed up. details of the account remain covered until revealed A little over a month after the murder, an anonymous man walked into the Hilo police station and said three brothers had bragged at a New Year's Eve party about running over a woman, biting her and raping her; he promised to return for the reward and never did. A Puna patrol officer, Richard Marzo, twice reported that Pauline had told two boys where the body was left; detectives said they reviewed the information and did not follow it up.

Frank Pauline Jr. was born on April 27th, 1973, in California, and had a criminal record from the age of nine. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed On June 18th, 1994, Pauline was interviewed for ninety minutes at Halawa and then taken to the Big Island, where he described the killing and reconstructed it. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He said Ian told him to kill her, that he hit her on the head with a tyre iron and that Ian went back to finish her. this part of the story is covered for now The brothers denied everything and said there was bad blood between the families. details of the account remain covered until revealed A bumper inside the car was damaged in a way consistent with hitting a bicycle.

Pauline soon changed his story. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed The Ireland family sued the county over the delayed emergency response and settled for $452,000.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

The Hawaii Innocence Project took the case in 2014. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it New DNA testing showed the sperm and the blood-soaked Jimmy Z shirt belonged to an unknown man and excluded all three defendants; a new tyre analysis found the Beetle had not left the marks at either scene; and a forensic odontologist concluded the mark on Dana's breast was not a bite mark at all. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it