Investigation has no luck matching fingers to child

Question: Whatever happened to the police investigation into finding the child whose six fingers were found in a plastic bag in a Dumpster near Aala Park in 2012?

Answer: The case is still active but without leads. Honolulu police investigators remain stumped by the discovery of the six child fingers and are still looking for leads identifying the child and how the six fingers got into a Dumpster in Kukui Gardens.

"There’s no development on it at all," CrimeStoppers Sgt. Kim Buffett said. "They looked for everything. … They did everything they could."

Police conducted a search of the Kukui Gardens area shortly after the fingers were reported to them but were unable to find the child or other body parts.

The police also made a public plea, through CrimeStoppers, for clues.

The fingers, coming from the upper tips of the knuckles, were found in a plastic zip-close bag on Feb. 2, by a woman who was looking for bottles and cans to recycle.

The woman initially thought the fingers were dried ginger root but upon further examination, she saw fingernails.

Police said the woman is not a suspect in the investigation.

Pam Cadiente, chief investigator for the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s office, said the fingers belonged to a girl younger than 10 years old and probably separated by a hard force.

She said the investigation has been unable to pinpoint her exact age, ethnicity, or when the fingers were severed from the girl’s hands.

Cadiente said finger bones can’t be used to determine ethnicity, and that there were too many variables to determine the age of the fingers.

She said the fingers might have been cut from a living person or a cadaver or a cadaver of someone who died a long time ago.

"It remains unsolved … until we know the circumstances we cannot determine if a crime was committed," Cadiente said.

"We’re not able to identify whom the fingers belonged to and how the fingers got there."

Authorities don’t know if the fingers were dumped by someone living at Kukui Gardens or elsewhere, including nearby housing complexes.

Kukui Gardens, with more than 850 rental units, was built as a low- to moderate-income housing project and opened in 1970.

The project, built originally with financing from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is between Chinatown and Mayor Wright public housing.

Anyone with leads about the identify of the child and why the fingers were discarded into the Dumpster is asked to call CrimeStoppers in Honolulu, 955-8300.

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This update was written by Gary T. Kubota. Suggest a topic for “Whatever Happened To…” by writing Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210, Honolulu 96813; call 529-4747; or email cityeditors@staradvertiser.com.