Honolulu police tricked accused killer Jacob Le into falsely confessing to killing his best friend and failed to follow up on other leads, defense lawyer Lee Hayakawa told a state jury Friday in opening statements of Le’s murder trial.
"The killer is still out there. Jacob Le did not kill Brent Kanae," Hayakawa said.
He said the so-called confession is full of inconsistencies and that it was impossible for Le, a "quintessential 90-pound weakling," to commit the murder.
Le, 27, is on trial for Kanae’s death. A passer-by found Kanae, 23, in a second-level stairwell at Ala Moana Center on Oct. 3.
Kanae had three stab wounds in his chest which punctured his heart, a lung and an artery. He bled to death.
Prosecutor Kristine Yoo said any one of those stab wounds could have caused death.
After initially denying any involvement in Kanae’s murder, police said Le confessed Oct. 18 to stabbing his friend. They said Le demonstrated for them how he put his right hand on Kanae’s right shoulder from behind, then reached around with his left hand and thrust a knife three times into Kanae’s chest.
Police also said a witness spotted Le near the stairwell where Kanae’s body was found.
Jeanelle Bautista testified Friday that she was the one who found Kanae in the stairwell coughing up blood through his mouth and nose. She said when she went to the Mai Tai Bar at the top of the stairwell to get help, she looked around and spotted Le.
"He looked right at me. Something told me to remember his face," Bautista said.
She said she called police after she saw Le at Kanae’s funeral a week later.
Le became a person of interest after friends told police Le told them he was the last person to talk to Kanae and of Le’s odd behavior, Yoo said. Instead of expressing shock or grief, "All the defendant talked about (with) his friends was about (Le’s) ex-girlfriend, Cindy," she told the jury.
Yuko Yamamoto testified that as she and Le were walking to Kanae’s home on the day after the stabbing, Le told her, "He wanted to be back with Cindy, and that is what (Kanae) would have wanted."
Later that evening, as friends were celebrating Kanae’s life at a Waikiki nightclub, Yamamoto said Le was more concerned about Cindy than with the dance he was to perform in tribute to Kanae.
Gabriel Rubio said that while he talked with Cindy at the nightclub celebration, Le stared at them and repeatedly walked past them. Rubio said Le told him, "I better not see her with another guy, or I going kill that guy."
Rubio said on the day of the stabbing, Le told him he was talking on the phone with Kanae when the phone cut off. He said Le later told him Kanae hung up after agreeing to meet.
Le and Kanae both danced in the hip-hop group called Dance Floor Assassins.
Alexander Emerson testified that Kanae was moving over to his group, Rawthentic, when he was murdered. He said he had heard of a conflict between Le and Kanae from their friends but didn’t know what the conflict was about.
