She has been reporting professionally for more than 20 years beginning in October 1999 with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. She was retained by its new owner in 2001 and again when the newspaper merged into the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in 2010.
Earlier in her career, a Feb. 10, 2001 article titled, "I want to tell my parents I am alive," got national and international attention with the first interview of anyone who had been aboard the Ehime Maru. The New York Times used quotes she obtained from a 16-year-old student who survived the sinking of the Japanese fishing vessel by a U.S. Navy submarine, and gave a nod to the Star-Bulletin. The Toronto Star ran the story. Fujimori also shared a 2004 Society of Professional Journalists award with two colleagues for a breaking news story, "1 dead/Cop Shot."
Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, volunteering to protect native forests, beekeeping, farming, traveling, singing and spending time with her "dogter."
The 25-year-old Colombian man who is trying to withdraw his guilty plea in the 2022 murder of 73-year-old Gary Ruby, along with stealing his house, car and identity, testified Friday concerning the reasons his mother hired attorney Myles Breiner to represent him. Read more
An Oahu Circuit Court judge Thursday sentenced a 32-year-old man — originally charged with attempted murder, robbery and gun charges for allegedly robbing and shooting at a Kaneohe gas station customer in 2023 — to four years’ probation on a charge of reckless endangering. Read more
Gibran Copeland, the homeless man indicted on murder and firearm charges in the Sept. 9 death of his girlfriend, whose body was found in a Manoa storm drain, asked an Oahu Circuit Court judge that bail be set in his case. Read more
The 60-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing 22-year-old Kashka Otto, a worker at the Nanakuli Wendy’s, and seriously injuring the 44-year-old restaurant manager, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that, if he is convicted, could result in a life sentence without parole. Read more
At the time the alleged assaults occurred between July 2017 and February 2018, the victim was 13 and 14 years old. Read more
Kauai County United Public Workers members have voted to accept 15% of their base hourly pay for all the hours worked during the COVID-19 pandemic, the union announced Monday. Read more
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A 75-year-old female parking lot attendant at the Kaiser Permanente Moanalua Medical Center died of fatal injuries when she was struck at about 4:30 p.m. Friday by a vehicle just outside the hospital’s parking garage. Read more
The Schweitzers, Albert Ian and younger brother, Shawn, are seeking compensation in the amount of $50,000 a year for each year they were wrongfully imprisoned. Read more
In Wednesday’s sentencing of 52-year-old Anthony F. Pereira II for fatally shooting his 66-year-old mother, Barbara, in the face and holding another woman hostage at his Maili home in June 2016, the judge summed up what appeared to be at the root of his actions. Read more
Oahu Circuit Judge Rowena Somerville sentenced this afternoon a 52-year-old former Oahu Community Correctional Center training sergeant to life in prison with the possibility of parole in the 2016 shooting death of his mother, Barbara Pereira. Read more
The 25-year-old Colombian man who took a plea deal March 18 in the murder of a 73-year-old man in his luxury Hawaii Loa Ridge house says his then- attorneys told him that if he didn’t take the deal, he would die in prison. Read more
The 17-year-old has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His jury trial is set for Dec. 2. Read more
The one-time Big Island farm girl pushed her parents to send her to college, married, flourished as a restaurateur and businesswoman in Chicago and Hawaii, and became a first-time mother at age 56. Read more
The two Hawaii schools were among the 356 schools across the country to receive the honor, announced Monday by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. Read more
Patoc was tried on charges of first-degree attempted murder, resisting an order to stop and first- degree unauthorized control of a propelled vehicle for jumping into the officer’s subsidized vehicle and fleeing along the North Shore to Wahiawa and ending up at Iolani Palace, where he was arrested. Read more
Tuesday’s hearing of a 25-year-old Colombian man’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea in the 2022 strangulation death of Gary Ruby, a 73-year-old Hawaii Loa Ridge man, was postponed because he objected to the Spanish-language interpreter assigned to cover the hearing. Read more
The lawyer for Juan Baron, 25, has filed a motion to withdraw his client’s guilty plea in the murder of Gary Ruby, whose body was found in a cement-filled bathtub. Read more
A one-hour paid television program, “The New Hurricane Threat for Hawaii,” will air Thursday and Saturday and feature local experts on why Hawaii is increasingly vulnerable to hurricanes and warn of its dire impacts on its people. Read more
Ilya and Sophia Tsaruk were vacationing on Maui from Washington state when they apparently drowned Saturday while swimming and possibly snorkeling in waters off the Ahihi-Kinau Natural Area Reserve in the southwest corner of Maui. Read more
EMS treated four flight attendants, ages 28, 31, 53 and 59, at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu and took them in stable condition to a hospital. Read more
Brothers Albert Ian and Shawn Schweitzer want a declaration of innocence to allow them to receive compensation for being wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, attorneys say. Read more
