Man still hopes to learn missing brother’s fate after 36 years

Lee Porter will be standing in line somewhere when he spots the back of a man’s head and wonders if it’s the brother who disappeared 36 years ago on Oahu.

As the years have passed, the sensation occurs less frequently. But from time to time, it still happens even though his brother, David, has been declared dead.

"I’ll know it’s not him, but it sure looks like him," Lee Porter said.

David Porter’s Volkswagen Beetle was found on Mariner’s Ridge on Nov. 26, 1976, two weeks after the 23-year-old mason’s mother reported him missing.

His body was never found.

A few years after David Porter’s disappearance, the boys’ mother urged Lee and a third brother, Scott, to stop looking for him.

"She just couldn’t do it anymore," Lee Porter said.

The brothers acceded to her wishes and, eventually, the family had him declared dead. But with their mother’s death several years ago, Lee Porter wants to rekindle the effort to find out what happened to David.

"It’s still unsolved … and that’s the sad part of it," Lee Porter said. "It’s like he vanished from the face of the Earth."

As the investigation proceeded, the Porters became more convinced David did not kill himself or meet with misfortune during a hike.

No evidence was found that David was anywhere near Mariner’s Ridge or the surrounding area, despite the efforts of more than 200 National Guard soldiers and volunteers who combed the East Honolulu hills for more than a week. David’s black Lab­rador was used in the search.

The Porters’ father died after a bout with cancer only weeks before David’s disappearance, but while the family grieved, it never appeared that David took the loss any harder than others in the family, Lee Porter said.

David was a "happy-go-lucky" guy and if he had been depressed, other family members would have known it, Lee Porter said.

"We were all very close."

He said the clearest sign of foul play, however, was that police found no fingerprints in the VW — not even David’s.

"It was wiped clean," Lee Porter said. "I don’t think he’s up there."

Meanwhile, the Labrador was left at the Kaneohe house where David lived alone, his bank account was untouched and the fins belonging to the avid waterman were in the VW’s trunk.

David smoked marijuana and was "probably dealing it," said Lee Porter, who believes that may hold a clue to what happened.

Sometime after David’s disappearance, a friend of his overheard a conversation in a Kailua bar about how the men had killed David, even mentioning him by name, Lee Porter said.

Police were told about the men, but the family was never told what happened to that lead, Lee Porter said. A private detective the Porters hired to investigate David’s disappearance learned at least one of the men had a lengthy criminal record, he said.

Much later, another of David’s friends told the family t­hat David told him on the day of his disappearance that he was going to Nuuanu to do a drug transaction involving the son of a prominent man, possibly a doctor.

If David was dealing weed, it was "pretty evident by his bank account" that it wasn’t much, Lee Porter said.

At 6-foot-2, David was a big man with a positive outlook and friendly personality who was liked by every­one and never got into fights, his brother said. "He had a lot of friends, he was never a loner."

The Honolulu Police Department is reviewing David Porter’s missing persons case due to a recent request by the family, HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu said.

While there is no active investigation at this point, the case remains open and anyone with information should call HPD’s Criminal Investigations Division at 723-3609, Yu said.

For his interview with the Star-Advertiser, Lee Porter brought with him a brittle photo album started by his mother, who had made one for each of her sons.

The first few pages of the album are filled with photos of David’s youth. The book stops about midway, with the last entries consisting of now yellowing newspaper clippings about his disappearance.

Flecks of black cardboard from the pages of the album came off as Lee Porter flipped through the book.

"I haven’t looked at this thing in years," he said.

Lee Porter, now 64, said he’s hoping that 36 years later someone will have the compassion to come forward with information and give him and Scott some sense of resolution about what happened to David, their youngest brother.

"Hopefully, there was more than one person involved," he said. "Somebody must have said something to somebody."